Religious Interest Groups, Rhetorical Strategies, and the the U.S. Congress.

Like their secular peers, religious organizations maintain offices in the nation's capital to advocate for their policy preferences. And yet, their authority and influence in Washington depends largely on the perception that they are "above" politics. If religious organizations are seen as "just another interest group" rather than as "representatives of religious communities of believers", then they are likely to experience diminished influence. In light of this dilemma, how do religious organizations achieve a delicate balance between advancing their earthly policy interests and harnessing their heavenly authority to influence public policy? We argue that religious organizations attempt to walk this line by maintaining an intentionally multivocal posture - adjusting their rhetorical strategy depending on the venue in which they are speaking. We hypothesize that three factors contribute to organizational decisions to modulate their rhetoric across venues: organizational identity, frame alignment, and institutional context. We test this with a content analysis of the testimony of various religious organizations. Our very preliminary results support the conclusion that religious organizations using identity, framing,and context to guide their multivocality. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]