December 6, 2001

By Cindy Hanford, Staff Writer

After NOW's website generated more than 5,600 emails protesting George W. Bush's likely nomination of J. Robert Brame to head the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), Brame withdrew his name from consideration. Activists sent e-mails to Senators Edward Kennedy and Judd Gregg on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee. NOW and other progressive organizations, including labor and lesbian/gay rights groups, exposed Brame's controversial background and successfully sent a message that leaders of religious extremist groups should not be considered for political appointments.

Brame served on the NLRB from 1997 to 2000, often revealing sexist, homophobic and anti- labor views – arguing, for example, for the reversal of well-established national labor policy and for the curbing of employees' right to unionize. At the center of the controversy surrounding Brame, however, lay his affiliation with extremist organizations, including the Christian Reconstructionist movement and particularly the group American Vision.

Brame resigned from American Vision's five-member board after that group's controversial agenda drew the attention of the general public. Though he served on the board for more than six years, he claimed to be unaware of the extremist views prominent on its web site and in its newsletter, Biblical Worldview.

Brame has also served on the advisory council of The Plymouth Rock Foundation, which opposed Sandra Day O'Connor's nomination to the Supreme Court because, in their view, a woman cannot sit in judgment over men.

The extremist views of American Vision and the Christian Reconstructionist movement are legion. Here are just some of them:

On women: American Vision insists that the Bible requires female subservience to men. In the September 1999 issue of Biblical Worldview, an American Vision author wrote that women fall between men and animals in the "God-ordained order."

On homosexuality: Christian Reconstructionist groups maintain that under biblical law, homosexuals must be executed. According to In These Times, the head of American Vision's board of directors, Gary DeMar, has advocated "killing homosexuals and capital punishment for abortion providers." Biblical Worldview asserts that "Homosexuals will continue to push their agenda and seduce young boys and girls . . . They need our children to perpetuate their 'alternative lifestyle.'" The September 1999 issue of Biblical Worldview referred to Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-Wis., endorsed by NOW/PAC) as a "lesbian Congressthing."

On theocracy and democracy: According to one American Vision text: "Non-Christians would not be forced to become Christians, but they would have to obey laws that came from the Bible. This would mean that homosexuality and abortion, for example, could not be claimed as 'civil rights.' They would be crimes." The June 1999 issue of Biblical Worldview read, "We've been told that Christians cannot impose their religious beliefs on others. Since heaven is at stake, we have no choice . . . ." and described democracy as "the first step toward fascism." Another American Vision publication asserted that the Constitution protected only Christianity. "The First Amendment had the specific purpose of excluding all rivalry among Christian denominations," the group says. "Other competing religions were not protected by the First Amendment."

Note: Thanks to Americans United for Separation of Church and State for documenting extremist quotes from American Vision.

To the many visitors to NOW's website who sent e-mails to stop Brame's nomination, we say THANK YOU! As our nation struggles against the religious extremism of the Taliban, we cannot forget that religious extremism also endangers women in this country.