WASHINGTON -- A church-based rally in support of conservative judges has threatened to turn a political debate into a holy war over how much influence religious conservatives should have over both politics and policy.

Several evangelical Christian activists used their Sunday rally to signal that they will continue to escalate the demands on government they started making with the recent case of Terri Schiavo, the brain-damaged Florida woman who died after her feeding tube was removed.

After religious conservatives demanded action, the Congress and President Bush intervened to try to save Schiavo's life. Polls, however, found that a majority of Americans didn't think the federal government should have inserted itself into what they considered a family and state issue.

Similarly, charging that Democratic efforts to use the filibuster to block the appointments of conservative judges are an attack on "people of faith" carries political risks. While it energizes some of the faithful, it also invites a further backlash from Americans who don't want religious litmus tests applied to government officials or policies. In fact, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 66 percent of Americans oppose changing Senate rules to make it easier to confirm Bush's judicial nominees.

"This may well be a productive strategy for Republicans," said Stephen Moore, an influential economic conservative and the head of the Free Enterprise Fund. "It's dangerous, though. It could produce a backlash."

The Rev. Jim Wallis, the editor of Sojourners Magazine, a liberal Christian journal, warned of a Republican "theocracy" that employs the Scriptures in its political campaigns.

"Despite the fact that no one has yet to find references to the filibuster in the Bible, Republicans and their religious allies are saying that God is on their side," Wallis said.

Take-no-prisoners tactics also are likely to make compromises over judicial appointments and other divisive issues even more difficult than they already are.

"The religious right is playing a tough game, daring those who oppose them to do something about it," said Dennis Goldford, a political scientist at Drake University in Iowa. "Politics is about compromise. Religion is about absolutes. If you bring religion into it, you destroy the chance for civil disagreement."

Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., on Sunday suggested a compromise in which Republicans would drop two of President Bush's most controversial judicial nominees and Democrats would allow a vote on five others they have so far blocked by using the filibuster.

The filibuster allows the minority in the Senate to block action with as few as 41 votes.

Religious conservatives don't want compromise, however. They want Republicans to abolish the filibuster and the Senate to approve all of Bush's nominees. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., told the Sunday rally that he was on their side.

The Sunday rally titled, "Justice Sunday, the filibuster against people of faith," was held in a Louisville church and simulcast to churches, television and radio stations nationwide. Organizers said it reached 61 million households, which if accurate would put it on a par with the first presidential debate last year, which was broadcast on all the major television and cable networks and drew an estimated 61.5 million viewers. The Sunday event was beamed mostly to smaller stations, many of which didn't plan to air the program until Tuesday.

Tony Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council and a co-sponsor of the rally, called the courts an "an enclave for those who seek to muzzle people of faith." He later said, "We are not saying that people who disagree with us are not people of faith."

Several groups vowed to fight back to save the filibuster while others, including religious leaders, chafed at the bare-knuckled merger of religion and politics.

Ralph Neas, the president of the liberal People For the American Way Foundation, said the organizers of the Sunday event used religion for a purely political goal, a tactic he said isolated them from hundreds of religious leaders around the country.

Some religious leaders denounced the Sunday event.

Several had urged Frist not to participate, including the Rev. Dr. Clifton Kirkpatrick, the Stated Clerk of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A), Frist's denomination. Others included the Rev. Dr. Robert W. Edgar, the general secretary of the National Council of Churches; Bishop Mark Hansen, the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America; Bishop Vashti McKenzie of the African Methodist Episcopal Church; and Rabbi David Saperstein, the director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.

Knight Ridder correspondent Steve Lannen contributed to this report.

© 2005 KR Washington Bureau and wire service sources

###