AJC: The debate over H.R. 536 takes on some very Baptist overtones
Thursday, January 24, 2008, 02:47 PM
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
As if things weren’t awkward enough around the state Capitol, the Legislature is about to dip deep into church politics.
House Speaker Glenn Richardson this morning announced that he’s brought on Kirby Godsey as an unpaid policy advisor.
Godsey is the former president of Mercer University, and remains a very popular fellow in Macon. There was some talk about him running for mayor last year.
But he’s not so welcome among many Baptist fundamentalists. Godsey was at the center of a long-running schism among Georgia Baptists — over topics such as biblical literalism, homosexuality, abortion and the role of women in religious affairs.
The fight was among people who labeled themselves conservatives and moderates, there being an extreme shortage of liberals among Southern Baptists. Godsey was in the moderate camp, i.e., the losing side, in the power struggle.
Much of the dispute played out at Mercer, which was affiliated with the Georgia Baptist Convention, but not controlled by it. After an unsuccessful effort to assert its power over the university’s board of trustees, the convention voted two years ago to cut its ties with the university.
Godsey retired shortly afterwards.
Why does Godsey’s appointment matter? And what kind of policy requires the House speaker to acquire theological underpinnings?
Supporters of H.R. 536, a proposed constitutional amendment to establish that human life begins at fertilization, have proven particularly aggressive this year.
Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee was brought to the Capitol on Tuesday to endorse the measure.
Perhaps more importantly, supporters of the bill — the Georgia Right to Life organization chief among them — have won the ear of the Georgia Baptist Convention, the state’s largest denomination. The Baptist organization recently sent out a pair of DVDs to every member church, outlining the details of the bill.
The speaker hasn’t taken a position on H.R. 536, but many Republicans think it a bridge too far, likely to raise objections among suburban women for — among other things — the impact it might have on accepted forms of contraception.
Given past tensions with Godsey, supporters of H.R. 536 won’t like the idea of the former university president advising Richardson on the bill. But there’s no doubt that Godsey speaks fluent Baptist, and knows the ins-and-outs of church politics. Which the speaker now needs to know about.
Georgia Baptist Day at the state Capitol is Feb. 12. We’ll see if it works.