Conservatism

After nearly seven years in the White House, President Bush has named 294 judges to the federal courts, giving Republican appointees a solid majority of the seats, including a 60%-to-40% edge over Democrats on the influential U.S. appeals courts. The rightward shift on the federal bench is likely to prove a lasting legacy of the Bush presidency, since many of these judges -- including his two Supreme Court appointees -- may serve for two more decades.

Jerry Worthy is as much a product of this city as the oil pulled from its ground. He was born here 44 years ago. He attended its schools. Now an accountant, he owns a home in one of its newer subdivisions with his longtime partner, Gilbert Reyna, 46. Both men say that despite the city's image as a bastion of intolerance, revived most recently by the Kern County clerk's refusal to perform same-sex marriages, for the most part they are left alone. "We're just really boring," Worthy said.

Bob Lawrence, a retired engineer, once counted on a majority of people in this state to vote just like him -- Republican. Presidential elections were rather uneventful affairs. So it comes as something of a surprise that in recent weeks, volunteers canvassing for Democrat Barack Obama have knocked on the front door of Lawrence's red brick home at least six times. He hasn't seen anyone from the other side. When an Obama ad comes on television -- which happens a lot -- Lawrence switches channels.

One of the favorite rallying cries on conservative radio these days is that the president-elect might face demands from his crazed lefty pals to revive the "Fairness Doctrine" to muzzle Rush, Sean and their allies on the right end of the radio dial. Commentators like Larry Elder of KABC here in Los Angeles have been sounding the warning about the possible imminent return of federal rules mandating that broadcasters balance out political views on radio and television.

Hundreds of conservative Episcopal congregations in North America, rejecting liberal biblical views of others in the denomination, formed a breakaway church Wednesday that threatened to further divide a global Anglican body already torn by the ordination of an openly gay bishop.

Mike Spence has devoted nearly two decades to spreading conservative Republican gospel in California, an often thankless task in a state that has been spurning his wing of the party the entire time. Now, John McCain's rout in California has set a new low for Republicans. So it was more than a mild understatement when Spence recently summed up the plight of California conservatives by saying, "We're at a difficult point."

Alan Chambers directs Exodus International, widely described as the nation's largest ex-gay ministry. But when he addresses the group's Freedom Conference at Concordia University in Irvine this month, Chambers won't celebrate successful "ex-gays." Truth is, he's not sure he's ever met one. With years of therapy, Chambers says, he has mostly conquered his own attraction to men; he's a husband and a father, and he identifies as straight.

Andy Schlafly was appalled. He was teaching a history class to home-schooled teens and one student had just turned in an assignment that dated events as "BCE," before the common era -- rather than "BC," before Christ. "Where did that come from?" he demanded. Her answer: "Wikipedia." At that, Schlafly knew he had to act. In his mind, the popular online encyclopedia -- written and edited by self-appointed experts worldwide -- was riddled with liberal bias.

In what may signal a generational shift in power, new Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. led a confident conservative majority at the Supreme Court this year and moved the law to the right on abortion, religion, campaign funding and racial diversity. Working with a 5-4 majority, Roberts prevailed in nearly all the major cases.

Historian Michelle Nickerson still recalls with delight and awe the day she first visited a Pasadena house stuffed with a vast collection of political pamphlets, books and clippings documenting conservative and anti-communist causes since the 1940s. "My heart was jumping out of my chest. I could not believe it," said Nickerson, now an American history professor at the University of Texas in Dallas. "It was one of those moments that you only get a few of in the course of research.