Are the end times upon us?  Or is it just business as usual from the religious right?

Pat Robertson — anti-gay, anti-abortion, anti-separation crusader — has endorsed Rudy Giuliani, the pro-gay, pro-choice, non-churchgoing, cross-dressing, twice-divorced, adulterous Republican candidate for president. 

Seems ironic, but it’s really not.  Unreformed religious righties like Pat Robertson have long been more concerned with power than principle.  They married the Republicans long ago, despite the party’s anti-biblical stances on poverty, war, the environment, race, and workers’ rights. 

It was all about values, we were told — abortion, gays, prayer in school, condoms, whatever.  But the Republicans’ failure to deliver on these supposedly critical issues while ripping the Bible apart on others belies their opposition to anything resembling a Christian worldview.  The religious right, of course, supported them anyway, thereby eradicating any pretext that these hacks may once have had of serving as a prophetic voice in the public arena.

Accordingly, Rudy does have one thing to recommend him to the religious right: the political winds happen to be blowing in his direction at the moment.  That is, his national poll numbers look good;  therefore he's the religious right's man.  Q.E.D.

To be fair, Pat Robertson hasn’t been taken seriously among most religious conservatives for a while now.  Too much crazy, too little action.  But the guy still has a strong following on his TV network, and he remains an icon.  For him to endorse the likes of Rudy Giuliani reflects the abject cynicism of the religious right’s old guard.  They use hot-button cultural issues to get the masses on their side, then abandon those principles at the first whiff of an invitation to the inaugural ball.