The Family Research Council — heir to the Christian Coalition as Washington’s most effective Christian Right political organization — doesn’t often stray far from the Republican line. But its sacrificing political loyalty in the aftermath of Katrina to score points for its church-instead-of-state vision. “The vast majority of displaced residents of New Orleans,” writes the group’s president, Tony Perkins, in an email newsletter, “who are staying in the church shelters are African-Americans being helped by churches in mostly white communities with resources, not from the government, because they’ve refused to help, but from church people across the nation.”