Coulter to speak at religious conference....our religion editor is upset with that.

Politically active religious leaders on the right - the religious right for short - seem not to be ready for a 12-step program yet. They're still hanging out with the same old friends, and last week one of them suffered a public embarrassment after being caught swigging from a bottle of Old GOP. I'm afraid he denies he has a problem.

Of all the religious right leaders, none has been more of a culture warrior than the Rev. D. James Kennedy. He may not be as much a household name as Jerry Falwell, but Kennedy, the pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, a large and conservative congregation, has been one of the foremost proponents of the view that conservative Christians have a mandate to reform America morally, using cultural and political means.

....."In 1996, Kennedy established at his church an independent organization with the portentous name of Center for Reclaiming America for Christ. It is, according to its Web site (reclaimamerica.org), "a grassroots organization" that "provides information, training and support to help Christians positively affect the culture and renew the vision of the Founding Fathers." Each year, the center has a conference, especially aimed at pastors, whose goal is to equip Christians to be "agents of moral witness in American public life and culture."

So far as this goes, it's commendable. In general, everyone can agree we want a more moral country. The tricky part is how you go about it. It might be pointed out that if the participating pastors focused on making their own congregants better followers of Jesus instead of learning how to practice pressure politics, then the country might be more moral, but never mind.

The speakers for this year's conference on March 2-3 were announced in a news release last week. They included Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council and pundit Ann Coulter, all of whom have strong ties to the Republican Party. (Um, Ann Coulter is going to help reclaim America for Christ? She-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, the one who said all liberals are traitors and we should invade Muslim countries, bomb their cities and forcibly convert them to Christianity? Wonder which sayings of Christ she's going to help America reclaim - "Blessed are the ruthless"? Or "If anyone strikes you on the cheek, lock and load"?)