In America the "Religious Right" or "Christian Right" is aligned with the more general conservative political movement. As a consequence, people tend to refer to them as "conservatives" - but is this a mistake? Are they perhaps something quite different?

In the Pasadena Star News, Gerald Plessner writes:

Our Constitution defines the separation of church and state as the cardinal principle of our Bill of Rights. The diversion of public funds to support religious programs under the rubric of "Faith Based Initiative' is not an American conservative value. It is a politically radical idea. People who support such initiatives are not constitutional conservatives. When president Bush says he supports a constitutional amendment limiting a particular minority's rights to enjoy the benefits of "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, the president cannot be called a constitutional conservative.

But what are they? And what should we call them? I believe the right word is orthodox(not capitalized). ... Since modern Republicanism has almost nothing in common with the original Republican party of Abraham Lincoln which was the liberal party of its time it is confusing and increasingly difficult to understand how someone can be called either a conservative or an orthodox Republican.

Although I don’t entirely agree with the appropriation of the label “orthodox” here, I do believe that Plessner has identified something very important: namely, that the Christian Right is not entirely “conservative” in its outlook. While it may hold conservative values in many areas, its program for implementing those values is quite radical in nature. Many want nothing short of a complete reconstruction of American society along lines very different from what it has ever experienced. That isn’t really “conservative,” now is it?

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