Right Hand of God

The simple answer is that Ford is a well-connected political fund-raiser who has spent the last 20 years dipping into the stuffed wallets of some of Texas' wealthiest folks to fund his various Religious Right organizations. Ford, who was there for the birth of the New Christian Right movement in the early 1970s, is just one of hundreds around the state and country who wake up every morning hoping to cleanse capitol buildings of liberals, activists, radicals and even moderate Republicans who would condone same-sex marriages, keep abortion legal, have evolution taught in classrooms, vote against school vouchers and generally infect the law with their secular beliefs.

But the real answer is a bit more complicated, because not only does Ford run one political action committee--Heritage Alliance, once known as FreePAC--but he's also behind two other organizations that spread his message well beyond the statehouse. Ford also is the founder of the Free Market Foundation, a family-first organization that gathers its members for regular anti-abortion rallies and uses its Web site to demand politicians pass legislation that defines marriage as "between only a man and a woman." And Free Market Foundation has a powerful legal arm: the Liberty Legal Institute, which gets involved in cases involving issues of "religious freedom," which usually involve the government trying to keep prayer out of public schools or religious icons off government property. Kelly Shackelford, handpicked by Ford to run his operations when Ford decided in the late 1990s to focus on politics exclusively, heads both Free Market Foundation and Liberty Legal Institute.

That makes Ford and Shackelford a powerful Texas twosome, since their activities spread all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where Shackelford will argue next month in favor of keeping a granite monument featuring the Ten Commandments on the grounds of the Capitol in Austin. And within months, if not weeks, Heritage Alliance will become what Ford calls a grassroots organization focused on galvanizing the newly powerful electorate that believes the soul of this country is at stake and that the legislation of faith is the only thing that will save it.

The Religious Right "believes God is clearly a Republican, and that just isn't true," says evangelical Christian Jim Wallis, author of God's Politics: Why the Right Gets it Wrong and the Left Doesn't Get It. "But they are comfortable with the language and the territory. They claim it as their own, claim to own it and, I think, even to own God. And they narrow all of their concerns to one or two hot-button social issues--gay marriage, abortion. This is just biblically ridiculous and theologically idolatrous. When people use religion and values as wrenches and weapons to divide us, they are using faith wrongly."

To their detractors, and they are legion around Austin, Ford and Shackelford are considered intolerant at best, extremist at worst. On his Web log, one University of Texas law professor is fond of calling them and their ilk members of the "Texas Taliban," a name coined by Boston Globe columnist Ellen Goodman to describe state legislators and groups that fought to keep Texas' anti-sodomy laws on the books.

"When the light is shown on them, people rebel against them," says Kathy Miller, president of Texas Freedom Network, an Austin-based organization that bills itself as "a mainstream voice" that counters the Religious Right. "Texans were offended by the fliers. Jeff Wentworth won re-election because of FreePAC's efforts to smear him. Ford and Shackelford are more successful under the radar. The folks elected because of the money behind their extreme agenda will let others know that if they stray out of line, they will pay the price."

But to their supporters, Free Market and Heritage are the today and tomorrow of politics in the state and country.

"Different lives have been awakened and energized," Ford says. "And they're out there multiplying now, and we don't even have any idea how they're multiplying. They're running for office; they're organizing. This is a nation based upon Judeo-Christian values. So it's just returning to where it was. I've forgotten who said it, but somebody said, 'The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.' We're just a generation away from total collapse at any given time."

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Richard Ford refuses to meet in person for an interview. At first, he even refused to give an interview. He insisted there wasn't anything to talk about--not yet, anyway. Maybe in a few months, but not now. And then, Ford changed his mind and agreed to talk. For a man who wants no publicity and who has usually managed to stay out of the spotlight, he has plenty to say.

Perhaps Ford wants to talk because he no longer wants to be misunderstood, to be seen as some homophobic zealot using smears and scares to make his point. Or perhaps he wants to talk in order to let people know he's out there, waiting for them to join his holy crusade.