Merry War on Christmas -- The Religious Right Isn't Going Anywhere

By Frederick Clarkson, The Public Eye. Posted December 25, 2008.

Innovations

At a national meeting of the American Catholic bishops held shortly after the election, many declared there was no acceptable compromise on abortion and denounced the pro-choice views of President-elect Barack Obama. Some condemned Catholics who had argued it was morally acceptable to back Obama because he pledged to reduce abortion rates.

Focus on the Family has rolled out a new "Truth Project," a religious and ideological indoctrination program that is currently touring the country targeting young people of "college age." In addition to the usual fare of family issues and sexuality, the project aggressively promotes intelligent design. Analysis of current polling shows a slight trend toward tolerance among young, white evangelicals concerning some of the issues of the culture wars. While many pundits take that as a sure sign of change to come, the Religious Right is looking at the same data. And Focus on the Family and the millennially militant organization The Call, among many others, intend to aggressively contend for that demographic.

The Call is a national parachurch youth organization of growing significance. It actively campaigned for the anti-marriage-equality ballot initiative in California, culminating with a 10-hour election eve prayer rally headlined by James Dobson and Tony Perkins that attracted some 33,000 people. Speakers called for "martyrs" and predicted there would come a time when "we will have to risk our lives." Dobson promoted the rally on his national radio show, and according to one report was, "Choking up as he said he felt the hand of God telling him to go. 'The Lord must be involved in this,' Dobson said."

When significant leaders of the Religious Right such as Dobson say such things, it is important to take notice. If we view such events solely though the lens of the culture war -- which is to say, narrowly framed disagreements over abortion and homosexuality, we risk the error of reductionism.

Pat Buchanan was right. There is a religious war going on in America in which one side seeks to thwart, and even to roll back, advances in civil rights. This poses one of the central challenges of our time for those of us who are not part of the Religious Right; those of us for whom religious pluralism and constitutional democracy matter, along with such closely related matters as reproductive freedom, marriage equality and free, quality and secular public education. The defense and advance of our most deeply held values requires our holding clear-eyed assessments of how the Religious Right adapts to the changed political environment. And in order to do this, we must view announcements of the death of the Religious Right and the end of the culture wars, with considerable skepticism, every time.

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Read more of Frederick Clarkson's work at Talk2Action.

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