New story at Religion Dispatches:
On February 4, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was the surprise keynote speaker for the 58th annual National Prayer Breakfast. The Breakfast is the one public event organized by the secretive Washington network, the Family, a group of elite fundamentalists who minister to DC’s powerful and wealthy who are seen as the divinely “elect,” chosen for leadership by God. With the Family in the news this past year due to the string of sex scandals at its “C Street” house for members of Congress—and later for the role it seems to have played in shaping the draconian anti-gay law introduced in Uganda last year—the speech by Clinton, sandwiched between Family head Doug Coe’s introduction and the traditional presidential address by Barack Obama, was an interesting coda to her strange status as a longtime “friend” of the Family.
Although much of the media coverage focused on Clinton’s and then President Obama’s condemnations of the anti-gay bill (leading religion scholar Mark Silk to suggest that Clinton’s role was damage control as the Family struggles to make the Uganda bill “go away”) Clinton’s speech also underscored the Family’s influence in pushing her stance on reproductive freedom rightward.
In her address, Clinton sentimentally recalled meeting Mother Teresa at the 1994 National Prayer Breakfast. Mother Teresa had used her platform as guest speaker to chastise the Clintons (standing right beside her, smiles stretched to the breaking point) for their nominal support of abortion rights. “Any country that accepts abortion is not teaching its people to love, but to use any violence to get what they want,” Mother Teresa said, and went on to suggest adoption be promoted as an alternative to abortion. “Please don’t kill the child. I want the child. Please give me the child.”
Mother Teresa’s pro-life fans swooned, with many giving the nun a standing ovation. The Clintons remained seated, yet both—particularly the ever-politic Hillary—understood how behind-the-scenes power politics work within the Christian Right, and responded to the rebuke by finding “common ground” with the nun.
