|
|||||||
|
|
|
|||||
|
|
|||||||
Understanding the Religious Right
The "Religious Right" has gotten its quadrennial stint as everybody’s favorite whipping boy out of the way early this year, courtesy of John McCain. McCain clearly miscalculated in lighting into Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. He appears to have bought the media’s line that the Religious Right consists solely of small minded, rather stupid evil bigots, detested by all good thinking people outside their own ranks. His echoing of Jesse Ventura’s rantings about the religiously minded may have been a conscious effort to tap the "Reform" mindset, or it may be a reflection that he has spent too much time with reporters. Either way, his comments were totally in harmony with prevailing media and cultural views. There is probably no group in America so little understood as fundamental Christians, and nobody seems to want to understand.
The religious Right is "Right" only in the sense of being defined in opposition to the humanist Left. Prior to the 1980s, the vast majority of fundamentalist Christians were firmly in the Democratic camp. Indeed, they were one of the key factors in Jimmy Carter’s election. They bolted to the Republican side of the aisle only when it became clear that the Democrats were going to do nothing to stop the nationalization of cultural radicalism. They were in many ways the ultimate non-political constituency in the country until abortion rights, feminism, "gay" rights and anti-religious bigotry became enshrined in national policy. When they reacted they coalesced under the leadership of people like Falwell and Robertson, and became a key part of the Reagan coalition. They have been in the Republican camp for only about 20 years now, and their loyalty to the GOP is remarkably shallow. The 1998 elections showed that the religious "right" will cross over and vote for Democrats in a heartbeat if they see in Democrats a closer reflection of their own values. Had McCain somehow managed to snatch the nomination, he probably would have lost two Religious Right voters for every one "moderate" or "independent" vote he gained. It would have been a recipe for disaster.
I utterly reject the sophomoric cartoon image of Christian Fundamentalists painted by McCain and the establishment media. Although their cup of tea is not my cup of tea (or perhaps my beer and cigarettes), my personal experience has shown most of the "born again" types I have known to be fine, polite, sensible and intelligent folks who do far more to practice real "compassion" on a daily basis than do most on the whiny left.
The problem that I do have with the organized Religious Right is political, and reflective of the fact that they are "conservatives" only in the sense of adhering to traditional social values. They have shown a disquieting willingness to use liberal means in pursuit of conservative ends. By this I mean that they are prone to seek to counter liberal gains at the national level by seeking to implement conservative national policy in its place. Reacting, for example, to Roe v. Wade they seek to pass a Human Life Amendment. I take a back seat to nobody in my opposition to abortion – it is barbaric, cruel and destructive – but the biggest issue with Roe v. Wade is not that it legalized abortion, it is that it perverted the Constitution and removed a crucial social/cultural issue from the realm of democratic debate and resolution. A libertarian-oriented conservative such as myself sees the first and most important step as repealing Roe v. Wade and returning the issue to the states and localities to decide democratically. The religious Right seeks to trump the liberals with an even greater perversion of the Constitution that would result in their side "winning".
There are many other examples of this tendency of religious conservatives to seek statist answers to their problems. This may explain their attachment to George W. Bush, whose compassionate conservativism is a small scale model of seeking conservative ends through liberal means. If a conservative leader arises who can convince the religious right that their best hope lies in returning these key social issues to the rough and tumble pf democratic resolution, to trust their fellow citizens to make the right decisions, then this key constituency will be in the Republican column to stay.