Forum Discussion: Conservatives vs. the Christian Right

The Christian Right's take-over of the Republican Party and other conservative institutions is surely one of the more important political developments in America over the last half of the 20th century. It's an issue which continues to disturb more secular conservatives and Republicans, though there weren't nearly so many complaints so long as conservative evangelicals provided enough vote to ensure Republican electoral victories. Is there much of a future for American conservatism that isn't defined by conservative Christian theology?

A forum member writes:

I've been a Republican since 1953 and never before ran into the Evangelical Christians before or during an election. Evangelicals were above politics and stayed out of the fury that was our elections. Clinton woke them up and suddenly Christians came alive to bring in a born-again Christian into the White House. They got their man and his Administration and never in the history of America have seen so much corruption, lying and manipulating of the people.

Christians used to have a spiritual attitude until Bush offered faith based grants and they all gathered to the food fest leaving behind any semblance of Christian principles. Immediately they brought their list of prohibitions including a ban on abortion, same sex marriage and end of life choices. The Ministers and Priests were running the GOP and of course the lost millions of Republican voters who were still trying for a limited government, individual choices and personal responsibilities. We became the enemy of the religious right and the social conservatives.

We have learned a valuable lesson here and it still is a "follow the money" game of politics. Christians were bought by Bush and their hopes of taking over the nation had a firm step up. I believe they destroyed the Republican Party and the Democrats will be the party in the Congress and White House. I can only hope they appoint a Supreme Court Justice that keep the balance in the S.C. laws.

If we elect another Christian leader, America will become a Police State just like Germany was.

I think it's wrong to suggest that evangelicals were "woken up" by Clinton — conservative evangelicals were active long before Clinton arrived in Washington. The best origin of the modern Christian is probably the conflict over the Equal Rights Amendment — it was here that a grass-roots movement, independent of more spiritually-oriented and traditional evangelical leaders, not only got started but also got a taste of political success. The next big step forward was the election battle between Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan — or perhaps the take-over of the Southern Baptist Convention, depending on how you look at it. All of this was long, long before Clinton.

Has the GOP really lost millions of voters? I'm not sure that there is any evidence of that. Some have stopped voting for the Republican Party, but aren't many more simply holding their nose and voting Republican anyway because as noxious as the Christian Right may be, they continue to hold liberal Democrats in lower regard than conservative theocrats?

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