Reply #11: One of the most telling paragraphs in there:

[belle]

Black staffers filed a $39 million racial discrimination suit against the coalition, alleging they were forced to use a separate entrance at its headquarters. The suit was settled with an out-of-court payment of some $300,000 to the employees.

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I suspect that that's a ah fundamental problem with the evangelical right wing, not just a CC scandal. They like to present an image of racial tolerance, even anti-racism these days (now that other people have done all the hard work to make such a sentiment mainstream, and now that gay people and other sexual/gender minorities provide a handy scapegoat substitute). But I think that surface image is fingernail thin; under it is the same ol' institutional racism that's been there all along. Hell, it's pretty true for mainstream America in general; you think it wouldn't be *more* true for the "traditional values" champions of the Old South?

Thing is, they need black evangelicals and other black religious conservatives; they must make up a significant percentage of their base.