Editorials

We haven’t heard much lately from the political arm of the state’s Religious Right. Mainly this is because members and their leaders have spent more time protecting their turf and fighting each other than they have waging war against secular sinners — real and imagined.

Now it seems they have kissed and made up. Or at least called a truce.

There have been rumblings of divisions within Alabama’s politically active conservative Christian community for some time. Way back in 1992, the Christian Coalition of Alabama was established separate from the national organization, although the two groups continued to work together on key issues that were important to both.

But when the national group supported Gov. Bob Riley’s so-called Amendment 1 because it would help poorer people in the state, the Alabama organization, to the surprise of many, opposed the governor’s plan. John Giles, then president of the state coalition and its chief lobbyist, argued that even though the governor’s tax increase was aimed at those who could afford to pay and that the majority of Alabamians would fare better under the governor’s plan, somehow this was not in keeping with Christian principles. So Giles weighed in against Amendment 1 and everyone who supported it — including the national organization.

From then it was only a matter of time before Giles and his supporters formally broke from the Christian Coalition and organized their own group — the Christian Action Alabama.

Not long after that the old Christian Coalition of Alabama, with Christian activist Randy Brinson as its new chairman, filed suit against Christian Action charging that Giles had taken the CCA’s asset, which included its membership lists, and had taken over its Web site. The suit also charged that Giles had made “unreasonable and untrue allegations” against Brinson.

Giles struck back, charging that Brinson and the CCA had been “subverted by gambling interests,” an interesting claim since Giles had been linked earlier to a plot by gambling interests in Mississippi that were trying to keep gambling, and competition, out of Alabama.

It could have gotten nasty.

But it won’t.

Brinson has agreed to drop the suit. Giles and his group have agreed not to talk about it.

And we are left to wonder if it really is over.