The Republican Party thought it could ride the tiger of the Christian Right: instead, that movement swallowed the party whole.

There a presidential candidate’s victory could depend on their success at gaining the Christian Right leaders’ endorsement. The news released on Sunday that Coalition candidates submitted a Christian principles statement to the Australian Christian Lobby’s (ACL’s) voter advice site signals they are making the same dangerous gamble.

The ACL is not lobbying for the traditional Australian definition of Christian, which leans more towards “live and let live”. Rather, this is an organisation committed to coercive, American-style Christianity. It has been listed as a “hate group”. Rumours in Pentecostal circles that the ACL is encouraging its leaders to undertake training from the Alliance Defending Freedom, a radical right American organisation that has argued for the “state-sanctioned sterilisation of trans people”, need to be addressed. That body also works towards the (re)criminalising of homosexuality and stripping of access to reproductive healthcare. The ACL and the ADF were both at the Alliance for Responsible Citizenship conference in London in February, with the ADF’s Kristen Waggoner listed as a speaker. Many Coalition politicians are on the ARC’s advisory board and attended that conference.

The ACL site has a misleading domain name: australiavotes.org.au.

Amelia Hamer and Katie Allen are among those who have joined Peter Dutton in committing themselves to a functionally Christian Nationalist position. This is implicit in the politically-driven assertion that the Christianity shaped Australian “foundations of our democracy, our institutions, and this country’s character”.

The transnational Right currently claims, as does the Coalition’s ACL statement, that “personal responsibility, individual liberty, freedom of belief and speech, and the paramount importance of the family, and the need for law and justice” are uniquely rooted in (Judeo) Christian faith and culture.

That is why so many Liberal and National Party figures are integrated in that ARC conference organisation, an international body that aims to “save” Judeo-Christian/Western civilisation from secular humanism (and Muslims). It is an Atlas Network-interlinked organisation. (The Atlas Network is the global linking body that promotes “partners” like the Institute of Public Affairs disseminating business messaging and, functionally, promoting culture wars. Much of the partners’ funding is fossil-fuel derived and delaying climate action has been a primary focus.)

When Coalition politicians claim to be committed to “protecting the freedom of religious faith”, it is important to understand this in the American context. This “religious freedom” call is a decades-old American war cry, not merely for the freedom to practice, but rather the freedom to impose their definition of Christian values on the country.

The statement aims to prove the Coalition’s commitment to this freedom by claiming to be the only political parties “unequivocally” condemning the rise of antisemitism. This is untrue. Whether or not individual politicians understand this point, it also signals the commitment in ARC (and similar National Conservative bodies) to a religio-ethnonationalist movement where Christian Nationalists and Jewish Israeli Nationalists mutually reinforce their projects. The ideology envisages nations where a chosen faith, rather than a chosen “race”, defines the nation’s character. It is rare to see more than a strategic nod from the ideology’s proponents to the right to be freely Muslim.

The statement is committed to “parental choice”. This is another American code for dividing communities. Within the meanings of the term is a commitment to funnelling public school money into “charter schools”, so that the public pays more for religious (or climate change denying) education, with less left for the public system. “Choice” also represents the kinds of aggressive attacks that the American Right has been perpetrating at school meetings, against school and library professionals. In this worldview, books about difference, even so banal as a girl accepting her hated freckles, are considered subversive.

The statement concludes with a transphobic commitment to the “biological fact” that there are only two sexes. The Coalition’s statement deviates from the extreme position represented in Donald Trump’s government only by allowing that intersex biology exists. This grade school understanding of human biology, let alone psychology, is reductive and wrong. It also flags the continued misuse of trans people as the first targeted outsider in an ugly politics that prioritises the insider identity against a chosen mutual enemy.

The Coalition is struggling to find a political path to power. The fact that it has chosen this statement and, presumably, encouraged its candidates to endorse the statement should concern Australians. Strategists clearly see a future where there are enough approximately religious votes for a loose voter bloc to coalesce in key seats. A protest vote, combined with the various attempts to marshal a Trump-like base, might just ensure success. Most Americans do not want the Handmaid’s Tale governments they are saddled with: decades of strategy make sure their goals are irrelevant.

The ACL site also boasts an extensive list of Federal Election Candidate Forums, where “the churches of Australia” are working to make their voices heard. The site is promoting its former executive director, Lyle Shelton’s Family First party as the best option for the Christian vote. Presumably, the Coalition is chasing the ACL’s second preferences.

At the same time, David Pellowe’s Church and State organisation is holding conferences around the country where speakers aim to rally Christian attendees with the theme of “Pulpits Aflame”. The goals include training the audience in Christian activism. Tony Abbott was present (and Alex Antic had been scheduled to attend) at the larger Brisbane event in February. Matt Canavan was a speaker, as was the controversial former MP, George Christensen. One of the panels committed to the plan to “end abortion” in this generation.

The ACL is one of Church and State’s major sponsors, alongside Vision Christian Media.

Last year the Church and State movement united one of its conferences with the Atlas Network’s Friedman Conference, as well as a conspiracist “Freedom” movement body. The thee merged to become the Triple Conference in Albury.

They are also linked to the new Australian Digital Holdings deal to rebrand as the American Trumpist organisation NewsMax. ADH TV was best known as the primarily Jamie Packer-funded vehicle for Alan Jones. Maurice Newman, who is connected to the Atlas Network, is chairman of ADH TV. In February, ADH TV was allowed to buy Southern Cross Austereo’s television assets. This gives it control of Tasmania’s highest rating news program among other platforms.

The broadcaster initially posted a list of its partner organisations, but this has since been removed. These included One Nation. Also represented was Church and State. The Epoch Times, a Trumpist right-wing news site from Falun Gong was listed, as was the radicalising Right’s organ, The Spectator. Also present were Atlas Network-interconnected bodies: the IPA, Centre for Independent Studies, Menzies Research Centre, Advance and CPAC Australia.

Simultaneously, Brian Marlow, the president of Atlas partner, the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance, recently appeared in Parliament to fight against the Misinformation and Disinformation Bill. He did not do so in that role, however, but as the Campaigner for Citizen Go. Citizen Go is a coercive Christian transnational body spawned from an extremist Spanish Catholic parent body. The organisation’s Australia/NZ leader is George Christensen. The group’s Facebook activity includes abortion abolition hashtags, anti-queer and conspiracist-leaning rightwing populist messaging.

Christensen is registered in the Attorney-General’s “Foreign Influence Transparency Scheme” in that role.

Mobilising the radicalised Christian vote through their pastors’ pulpits and communities has been crucial to the transformations taking place in the US. Church and State is aiming to use that strategy. Organisations like the ADF use lawfare to fight to impose their vision on others, and the ACL’s Human Rights Law Alliance is part of the Church and State conference circuit. The Christian Right in America spent decades creating dedicated media empires and political organisations to ensure its power.

Australians must act to stop this replication of America’s Christian extremist takeover. The Coalition has gifted us the opportunity to bring it out of the shadows.

Disclosure

This research is supported by an Australian Government Research Training Program Scholarship.