Evangelical Christian lobbyist pushes environment

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http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2006-09-25T195455Z_01_N20188245_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENVIRONMENT-EVANGELICALS.xml&archived=False&src=092506_1712_TOPSTORY_wild_weather_warning

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - With his pin-stripe suit and media-ready manner, the Rev. Richard Cizik looks like a typical Washington lobbyist, but his is a mission with a difference: persuading evangelical Christians to care about global warming.

Cizik freely admits it's a job that tends to make strange political bedfellows, since the 60 million or so American evangelicals tend to be more concerned with such social issues as abortion (con) and the war in Iraq (pro) than with tackling global climate change or other environmental problems.

And while most U.S. evangelical Christians tend to vote Republican, the environmental cause is more associated with the Democratic Party, Cizik said in a Reuters interview.

"There are people who disagree with what I'm doing ... within the evangelical community of America," he said.