Linker, Damon 1969-

views updated

Linker, Damon 1969-

PERSONAL:

Born 1969, in New York, NY; married; wife's name Beth; children: two. Education: Ithaca College, B.A., 1991; New York University, M.A.; Michigan State University, Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Philadelphia, PA. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer, editor, and educator. First Things, began as associate editor, became editor, 2001-05; previously taught political philosophy at Brigham Young University, Salt Lake City, UT, and served as a speechwriter for Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, New York, NY.

WRITINGS:

The Theocons: Secular America under Siege, Doubleday (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to periodicals, including New Republic, Wall Street Journal, New York Times Book Review, Commentary, National Review, Weekly Standard, Policy Review, Public Interest, Review of Politics, Review of Metaphysics, and the American Behavioral Scientist.

SIDELIGHTS:

In his first book, The Theocons: Secular America under Siege, author Damon Linker writes about a small but powerful alliance among right-wing Catholics and Evangelical Christians that has effectively raised money and campaigned for candidates in the Republican Party. As a result, according to the author, the group that he dubs the "theocons" have input at the highest levels of the U.S. government. The author focuses primarily on the group's leader, Richard John Neuhaus, who founded the group's journal First Things, where Linker once worked. Linker delves into the political philosophy of Neuhaus and his colleagues, dating its origins back to the 1960s, and also expounds on what he sees as the group's misguided aims, such as abolishing the separation of church and state. Ray Olson, writing in Booklist, called The Theocons "one of the most enlightening critiques of the Religious Right to date." A Kirkus Reviews contributor commented that Linker believes that the theocons "envision a sort of fantasy '50s world in which men are in charge, women stay at home, gays go to therapy … and Christian principles pervade the marketplace and the corridors of power." In a review in the Washington Monthly, Paul Baumann wrote that the book "should hold considerable fascination even for readers unfamiliar with the somewhat circumscribed world of religious opinion journalism, where Neuhaus is a prominent and polarizing figure." Tom Karel commented in the Library Journal that the author's "book is a well-researched examination of an ideological movement that, he claims, forms the foundation of the current conservative religious political ascendancy."