The Religious Right's Crusade for 'Decency'

The growing strength of the Religious Right can seem, at times, like an overnight phenomenon. After all, when in recent history has a president's vocal and avid disdain for secular politics become such an everyday reality ... in the United States?

Culturally, the hysterical reaction Janet Jackson's 2004 Superbowl "wardrobe malfunction" received would make one think that such an incident never happened before. It has, even during the conservative 1950s. But the breast-baring accidents of Hollywood actors such as Faye Emerson and Jayne Mansfield did not result in any mass campaigns for "family values." They didn't even cause a stir.

First-amendment specialist Frederick S. Lane explains all of this -- which he dubs the "decency wars" -- in his latest book, The Decency Wars: The Campaign to Cleanse American Culture. This highly comprehensive history book chronicles the advancement of the Religious Right and evangelicals' moralistic influence on American public policy.

I talked with Lane shortly after the unveiling of the Foley-pages sex scandal.

Celina De Leon: Would it be correct to say that the Religious Right has always been a part of the U.S., but in varying degrees and guises?

Frederick S. Lane: There has always been a portion of society that has been worried about American decency and American morality. I think that that has been fluid over the years. And obviously, in the last 30 years, it's gotten a good deal stronger.

Would you say that "decency wars" are a reality for many countries around the world? For example, the uprising of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East.

Absolutely. These are the kinds of issues that get debated in almost every country to one degree or another. I think that what you end up seeing is just a lot of different national flavors if you will. The French are much more worried about violence and much less concerned about nudity and sexuality than we are. In the Middle East you've got some really strict definitions of sexual conduct and gender roles. I think that's actually what makes all of this so fascinating; we're all the same species but we have such different approaches to this.

You cite the Janet Jackson-Justin Timberlake Superbowl fiasco, which occurred in the middle of the 2004 primaries, as being one of the major reasons why "moral values" became the driving force of the presidential election amidst the election's very close race. Can you talk more about how amidst statistics the majority of the American public bought the idea that President Bush was elected for a second term because of his "decent" evangelical Christian values?

I think partly because the year got off to such a huge decency start with the Superbowl halftime show. The idea of the decency wars, or the idea of moral values, took on a much larger-than-life perspective than it otherwise would have. And obviously, I think that the Republicans played that up. I think that Janet Jackson and Justin Timberlake became a symbol for a culture that was out of control. And then when you combine it with the fact that the state of Vermont had just passed the right to civil unions a couple of years before, and the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court had just said that gay couples could actually marry in the state of Massachusetts, it really helped to create an environment where moral values had this big perspective.

I think the Republicans were very successful in taking advantage of that. But when you look at the actual exit polling data, moral values were really only a predominant concern for maybe 20 or 22 percent of the electorate. Far more people were actually concerned about the economy, what was happening in the Middle East, the energy crisis --all the usual things that we worry about.

As I've argued it in many different places, the decency wars have just become the shorthand that the Republicans use. I think they really use it for its distractive capability. Which frankly, we've been doing with sex forever to distract from more important things. [Laughs] Whether it's relationshipwise. Whether it's policywise. It's just one of the ways in which we handle things in this country. Which is really unfortunate when you start to look at all of the serious things that we do have to deal with as a country.