As a key figure of the
New Right—''
Harper's Magazine'' noted that he was "often described by his admirers as 'the Lenin of
social conservatism'"—Weyrich positioned himself as a defender of
traditionalist sociopolitical values,
states' rights, marriage,
anti-communism, and as a staunch opponent of the
New Left. In
Thy Kingdom Come,
Randall Balmer recounts comments that Weyrich, whom he describes as "one of the architects of the Religious Right in the late 1970s", made at a conference sponsored by a
religious right organization that they both attended in Washington in 1990:
Bob Jones University had
policies that refused
black students enrollment until 1971, admitted only married blacks from 1971 to 1975, and prohibited
interracial dating and marriage between 1975 and 2000. Weyrich was a supporter of
voter suppression, saying in 1980: "I don't want everybody to vote. Elections are not won by a majority of people. They never have been from the beginning of our country, and they are not now. As a matter of fact, our leverage in the elections quite candidly goes up as the voting populace goes down." In October 1997,
The New Republic published an article "Robespierre of the Right—What I Ate at the Revolution" by
David Grann, which portrayed Weyrich as highly effective at creating a conservative establishment but also a volatile and tempestuous figure. Weyrich, supported by
Larry Klayman of
Judicial Watch, sued the magazine and others for
libel; the case was dismissed, then
remanded in January 2001, then dropped by Weyrich. Weyrich abhorred
Political Correctness which he called
Cultural Marxism, seeing it as a deliberate effort to undermine what he believed was "our traditional, Western, Judeo-Christian culture" and the conservative agenda in American society. In 1999, writing that he believed "we have lost the culture war", he suggested "a legitimate strategy for us to follow is to look at ways to separate ourselves from the institutions that have been captured by the ideology of Political Correctness, or by other enemies of our traditional culture.... we need to drop out of this [alien and hostile] culture, and find places, even if it is where we physically are right now, where we can live godly, righteous and sober lives." In response to a 1999 controversy covered by the press concerning a group of
Wiccans in the United States military who were holding religious rituals and services on the grounds of the bases they were assigned to, Weyrich sought to exempt Wiccans from the
Free Exercise Clause of the First Amendment and bar them from serving in the military altogether. Weyrich, as president of the Free Congress Foundation, led a coalition of ten religious right organizations that attempted a Christian boycott on joining the military until all Wiccans were removed from the services, saying:
Dominionism According to
TheocracyWatch and the
Anti-Defamation League, both Weyrich and his Free Congress Foundation were closely associated with
dominionism. TheocracyWatch listed both as leading examples of "dominionism in action," citing "a manifesto from Paul Weyrich's Free Congress Foundation,"
The Integration of Theory and Practice: A Program for the New Traditionalist Movement which "illuminates the tactics of the dominionist movement". The Anti-Defamation League identified Weyrich and the Free Congress Foundation as part of an alliance of more than 50 of the most prominent conservative Christian leaders and organizations that threaten the separation of church and state. and dismissed the claim that the Christian right wished to transform America into a theocracy. Katherine Yurica wrote that Weyrich guided Eric Heubeck in writing
The Integration of Theory and Practice, the Free Congress Foundation's strategic plan published in 2001 by the FCF, which she says calls for the use of deception, misinformation, and divisiveness to allow
conservative evangelical Christian Republicans to gain and keep control of seats of power in the government of the United States. Weyrich publicly rejected accusations that he wanted America to become a theocracy, saying:
Criticism of conservatives and homosexuality Weyrich also often made an issue out of what he claimed were his fellow conservatives' behavior and abuse of power, and he encouraged a
grassroots movement in conservatism he called "the next conservatism", which he said should work to "restore America" from the bottom up. Illustrating his point, Weyrich drew a comparison between "how the Christian church grew amidst a decaying
Roman Empire" and "how the next conservatism can restore an American republic as a falling America Empire collapses around us." He advocated a revival of the
House Un-American Activities Committee and the
Senate Internal Security Subcommittee of the
U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary, with the aim of identifying and removing communists from the media, which he contended still harbors infiltrators from the former Soviet Union: In a 2006 interview with
Michele Norris of
National Public Radio about the 2006
Mark Foley scandal, Weyrich expressed his views regarding
homosexuality:
Culture war letter Frustrated with public indifference to the
Clinton–Lewinsky scandal, Weyrich wrote a letter in February 1999 stating that he believed conservatives had lost the
culture war, urging a separatist strategy where conservatives ought to live apart from corrupted mainstream society and form their own parallel institutions: This was widely interpreted as Weyrich calling for a retreat from politics, but he almost immediately issued a clarification stating this was not his intent. In the evangelical magazine
World he wrote: By 2004, Weyrich was reportedly more hopeful, given trends in public opinion and the reelection of
President George W. Bush. In spite of his initial support for Bush, he often disagreed with Bush administration policies. Examples of their disagreement included the
Iraq War,
immigration,
Harriet Miers, and fiscal policy. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Weyrich made many trips to Russia and was a supporter of a close Russia-United States relationship. ==Personal life==