Theocracy at the Grocery Store 
(Or, Mom, There’s a Dominionist Lawyer in my Juice!)

If you follow Church/State separation issues, you've probably heard of the Alliance Defense Fund, the funding arm of the Right's legal machine. The ADF, a creation of the likes of Don Wildmon and James Dobson, usually raises funds for the likes of Pat Robertson's ACLJ and other ostensibly Christian legal groups whose specialty is defending Church/State entanglements. Typical cases funded by the ADF almost invariably involve enforcement of Christian's "rights" to harass gays and other groups they disapprove of, litigation against legalizing gay marriage, and defending Christian religious displays on government property.

The ADF has long been linked to the ultraconservative Recon­structionists, an extremist movement that advocates a "Christian" takover of US government. Reconstructionists are the dirty little secret of the Christian Right, and make many of its better-known public faces seem positively tame by comparison. While Jerry Falwell speaks ill of homosexuals, witches, and liberals, the influential recons behind the scene are actively working to bring about a theocratic government where these "social ills" will be eradicated. Never mind Jesus and his attitude of peace, these so-called Christians long for a government through which they will enforce Old Testament values- that is, making "offenses" such as homosexuiality, blasphemy, adultery, and witchcraft capital crimes. In the Reconstructionist dystopia, non Christians would be prevented from holding political office, marginalized as second class citizens. Some Recons have even advocated the veiling of women and other notions usually thought to be the domain of conservative Islam.

One of the ways Reconstructionists promote their agenda is through groups like the ADF- but who pays the bills? I must admit I was rather shocked to discover that I've been helping. The innocently wholesome-looking juice I've been buying has a dark little secret of its own. I readily admit I'm not the most diligent of consumers- my grocery politics activism have been largely confined to avoiding Walmart and Domino's Pizza. Even so, I was a bit aghast to discover that my dollars are helping to fund the Bolthouse Foundation, one of the ADF's major sources of income- nothing on these product's slick labels give any clues that this is a company that funds Reconstructionist causes or who asks recipients of its largesse to sign statements eschewing belief in evolution and affirming that people like me are bound for "everlasting punishment." Now, what to do with a half drunk bottle of carrot blend that makes me slightly queasy to look at?