Bush is Hostage to Religious Right, Says Top Republican

One of the most respected figures in the Republican political establishment turned on his own party yesterday, accusing the leadership of falling hostage to the religious right.

In an opinion piece in yesterday's New York Times, John Danforth, a former senator and US ambassador to the United Nations, writes: "Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians."

Mr Danforth's credentials in the party, as a three-term senator from Missouri's heartland and as the minister chosen by Ronald Reagan to officiate at his state funeral in June 2004, are well established.

His broadside against the party's rightward shift in recent years appeared to crystallise growing unease over the increasingly political nature of religion in public life in the US - prompted by the public feud over the fate of Terri Schiavo, the severely brain-damaged woman who spent her 13th day without food or water in a hospice following the removal of her feeding tube. That affair has split the US right, and in recent days Republicans have tried to distance themselves from the controversy because of negative public reaction.

The Terri Schiavo affair has opened faultlines on the other side of the political divide. On Tuesday, the Reverend Jesse Jackson confounded fellow Democrats by flying to Florida and joining the vigil outside the hospice where Ms Schiavo lies dying. "We cannot hide behind the law and not have mercy," Mr Jackson said.

However, a CBS television poll last week found 82% of Americans opposed to efforts by George Bush and Congress to intervene to prolong Ms Schiavo's life against the express wishes of her husband.

In his article, Mr Danforth - a disappointment to the religious right who would have liked to have seen him, the only ordained minister in the US Senate, gain a leadership role - taps into the sense of disquiet over the erosion of the separation of church and state.

"High-profile Republican efforts to prolong the life of Ms Schiavo, including departures from Republican principles ... can rightfully be interpreted as yielding to the pressure of religious power blocs," he wrote.

His critique of the party went far beyond Ms Schiavo yesterday, and cited the party's active opposition to gay marriage as well as attempts in his own state, Missouri, to criminalise stem cell research.

"I am and have always been pro-life," he wrote. "But the only explanation for legislators comparing cells in a petri dish to babies in the womb is the extension of religious doctrine into statutory law."