“I think they do have to worry about our cultural influence.” Douglas Wilson
The headline in today’s flashback is dated October 5, 2002. That’s 20 ½ years ago. Three things have changed since this then:
- Pastor Douglas Wilson of Christ Church in Moscow, Idaho, now embraces female breasts (covered or not) as vital components of his persona;
- Doug Wilson has unleashed four sexual predators on the Palouse (most certainly the number is greater than four, but these cases won’t surface for a few years per the pattern); and
- Wilson has acquired large swaths of property in and around Moscow.
Of course, the headline remains true — Wilson has split the community. The divide lies between normal people and those who wink at violent felons and other sex offenders. This is the culture war.
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Community divide
Liberals, conservatives wage battle for Moscow’s identity; decorum often lost in debate
By Ted McDonough
A person walking up to an expresso stand in Moscow these days is as likely to be asked about their spiritual life as the amount of room they want for cream.
It’s the kind of public display of religion that is driving the town’s liberals bonkers.
For some, the City Council’s passage of a ban on full-frontal nudity this summer was the last straw.
For their part, many Moscow conservatives say they have been demonized for asking to participate in the community debate.
People on either side of the divide think they are in a struggle for the future soul of Moscow. Each side says newcomers are trying to change the city.
“The nudity ordinance was a symptom as opposed to the problem,” said Bill London, a member of the recently formed Moscow Civic Association which was organized to give Moscow progressives a united voice.
“The issue, the deeper underlying issue, is the growing strength of what you have to call a conservative Christian force within Moscow.”
Shirley Greene, another longtime resident, thinks the tension stems from Moscow’s left becoming more radical.
“Many of these people are from other areas and want to come in and change town,” she said.
The tension between differing visions of the city has reached a crescendo on the Moscow Vision 2020 community Internet bulletin board where recent months’ conversation has frequently erupted into electronic shouting matches. Vision 2020 has seen demands to expel participants and limit speech as well as increasingly urgent calls from some of “why can’t we all just get along?”
Former City Councilwoman Linda Pall thinks Moscow needs professional help. She suggests a series of facilitated small-group discussions based on forums used elsewhere to mediate urban racial tension.
“This city gets people to come here because we have had a kind of laid-back, tolerant, open attitude,” she said. “I don’t see that now.”
Many agree Moscow is becoming more conservative.
It is a town where the annual community celebration is an outgrowth of the hippie-era Renaissance Fair. Residents can still pick up communist literature at the Moscow Food Co-Op. But it’s been about 10 years since the Lesbian Avengers paraded down Main Street breathing fire.
“Moscow was always considered a liberal oasis,” said Bill Bode, a Moscow City Council member for eight years in the 1980s. “It isn’t any more.”
The city has elected Republicans to the Legislature for years, but the model of a Moscow Republican was a pro-choice moderate.
Today’s all Republican delegation includes state Rep. Gary Young, a Latah County sheriff’s chaplain who caused a stir by questioning Idaho’s public school curriculum for teaching evolution.
The City Council includes several conservatives with pronounced social views, including its newest member, John Guyer, who argued for the city’s public nudity ordinance saying a woman’s breast should be shared only with her husband.
The political change has been paralleled by the increased conservatives in the city’s civic life. Church members gathered at City Hall last year to protest beer sales at East City Park. This spring, students from the religious New St. Andrews College took to the street with signs protesting the Moscow School District’s override levy.
City Councilman Jack Hill thinks the divide in town has become unhealthy. Hill is trying to round up support for forums at which residents could resolve their differences. He has made up a list of issues where thinks the debate has become intractable, including breasts, trees at the mall and public schooling.
But many liberals and conservatives say viewpoints are at such polar extremes, a mediated solution isn’t likely.
“Moscow is suffering from a squeaky wheel sound. One wheel is doing all the squeaking. We need to hear from the other three wheels in the wagon,” said Lois Blackburn, a member of the Moscow Civic Association’s steering committee.
The association plans to promote public education, the arts, “celebration of religious, gender, racial, lifestyle and ethnic diversity,” and sustainable community development, among other issues.
Blackburn said the group has other plans she wasn’t willing to share.
Early organization meetings included suggestions the group finance candidates for local office.
Group members aren’t out to get religious conservatives, but want a liberal voice to be heard, London said.
Conservatives are successfully exercising their civic muscle, London said. “I think it’s time for progressives in Moscow to exert that kind of political pressure.”
“It’s interesting to see how shrill some people have gotten at any suggestion they restrain themselves for the wider community,” said Roy Atwood, dean of New St. Andrews College. “The curious thing is some of the people on the left are acting in a very conservative kind of way. The liberals are the ones screaming for the status quo.”
Instead of learning about their Christian neighbors, many liberals have jumped to “gross stereotypes of people’s positions,” Atwood said.
Religious conservatives in Moscow aren’t monolithic, and aren’t conspiring to take over town, he said.
Religious conservatives are increasing in number, however, and are interested in being recognized and valued members of the community, he said.
New St. Andrews College has grown from four students in 1994 to about 100 today. The school recently purchased a prominent building on Main Street as a new home. Logos School also is growing and bringing many new families to the city, said Doug Wilson, pastor of Christ Church and Logos board member.
Wilson said the public voice of conservative, religious Moscow isn’t new. He has been writing letters to the editor and speaking publicly for years. It’s just that now the number of religious conservatives has grown to a point their voices can’t be ignored.
Wilson isn’t interested in reaching an accommodation with Moscow’s liberals so that Councilman Hill can sleep at night.
“We believe what we believe is true,” he said. “What it boils down to is we are here. We’re not going away and we’re doing what we’re doing.”
At the same time, liberals don’t need to fear a takeover, he said. Conservative Christians aren’t interested in political power.
“I think they do have to worry about our cultural influence,” Wilson said.
Moscow is fertile ground for conservative religious schooling, said Wilson, who predicts half of all Moscow students will be privately educated in 10 years.
“If we continue to grow and flourish and develop, it will have an impact on Moscow,” he said. “It won’t be the nice, liberal hippie town it was 20 years ago.”
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