The intrusion of America's leading Republican politicians into the tragic dilemma facing Terri Schiavo and her family speaks volumes about how deeply they have become beholden to the religious right. Brushing aside time-honored advocacy for limited government and state sovereignty at the behest of a crass internal memo advertising a "great political issue" that "the pro-life base will be excited" about, Congressional Republicans and President Bush instead used the moment to pay Christian conservatives their most dramatic homage to date.

The foremost political players in this drama - President Bush, Tom DeLay, and Bill Frist - bring a pungent mix of raw ambition, blatant agendas and inconsistencies on the issues in question that taint their flowery pieties with a distinctly fishy odor. Down in the trenches beside lawyers from the Family Research Council and American Center for Law and Justice, founded by James Dobson and Pat Robertson, respectively, with moral support from Dobson, Jerry Falwell, and Burke Balch of the National Right to Life Foundation, Republican leaders are bringing a new face to their party that progressives should be itching to unmask.

Indeed, the grubby spectacle of House Majority Leader Tom DeLay trying to resurrect his reputation by force-feeding a woman who has been vegetative for 15 years has had the opposite of the intended effect on most Americans. An ABC poll on Monday found not only that 70% of those surveyed nationwide found Congress's involvement inappropriate, but that by a margin of 67 to 19% they believed that the politicians trying to keep her alive were motivated more by "political advantage" than "concern for Schiavo." Among Catholics, support for removing Schiavo's feeding tube stood at 63 to 26%, among conservatives, 54 to 40%, and among evangelicals, 46 to 44%. In granting standing in federal court to "any parent of Teresa Marie Schiavo," as provided in the remarkable new law passed last weekend, DeLay, Frist and the President were acting on behalf of a minority within a minority of their supporters.

The face of the theocon power brokers that hold the Republican Party in such thrall has up to the present been carefully shielded from the spotlight. At their New York City convention last fall, Republicans offered their prime time podium to a series of social moderates such as Arnold Schwarznegger, Rudy Giuliani and John McCain - who once referred to the religious right as "forces of evil" - while persuading the theocons to take a temporary back seat.

Since Bush's re-election, they have openly been claiming their dues. When Arlen Specter questioned the prospects of an anti-Roe Supreme Court nominee, a furious campaign led by James Dobson nearly cost him the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee. Dobson settled for Specter's humiliating public pledge to support Bush's judges, boasting that the Senator would "be taking his new position on a very short leash." In a letter to supporters several weeks later, Dobson threatened to put six Democratic Senators "in the bulls-eye" in a "battle of enormous proportions from sea to shining sea" if they blocked conservative appointments to the Supreme Court.

For all their moral clarity, the hardball players of the Republicans' theocon wing have often been embroiled in ethical controversy. While Tom DeLay's fundraising scams and abuses of power are widely known, ties between Bill Frist's financial and family interest in the HCA hospital chain and medical malpractice and tort reform legislation he has championed have mostly slipped under the radar. Ralph Reed, the former director of the Christian Coalition and in control of Bush's 2004 campaign in the Southeast, was denounced Tuesday by the conservative columnist David Brooks for accepting $4 million from casino-rich Indian tribes to finance a campaign against gambling.

The ascendancy of the theocons is already causing fault lines to emerge within the Republican Party. "This Republican Party of Lincoln has become a party of theocracy," lamented Connecticut moderate Chris Shays.

Progressives should not allow the Republican leadership to hide behind fuzzy, poll-tested phrases about a "culture of life" or the "wonder-working power" of prayer. They should be forced to again and again to choose between the theocon power brokers and the rest of the American public. Senator Frist should be forced to explain just how AIDS can be transmitted through saliva or tears, which he refuses to admit is not possible; President Bush should be asked over and over just when he converted between signing a 1999 bill allowing Texas hospitals to pull the plug and the present.

As the Schiavo case drags on, progressives should have enough faith in the good sense of the American people to take a principled stand. Even with minorities in both houses of Congress, Democrats can force Republicans to kowtow a few more times to the people who stay up at night protecting our children from SpongeBob Squarepants and Tinky Winky the teletubby. Americans do not appreciate the sordid spectacle being played in our Congress and our courts, and they will appreciate even less the unmasked faces of those behind it.

Sasha F. Chavkin (sfc717@aol.com) has interned at The Nation magazine. Sasha is currently a senior at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, hoping to win a Fulbright scholarship to spend next year in Peru studying the impact of the media on attitidues towards democracy.

###