An important basis of the Christian Right's assault on modernity is its concern with sexuality, sexual education, and people's sexual behavior. This isn't just one feature of an assault on modernity; instead, it is in many ways a central foundation for everything they see as wrong with the modern world. This has been true since the very beginning of American fundamentalism.

In Ungodly Women: Gender and the First Wave of American Fundamentalism, Betty A. Deberg writes:

The Victorian gender ideology included a specific set of assumptions regarding human sexuality: Women should be innocent of sexual knowledge and chaste, and sexual conduct should be dictated by tradition and religious sanction rather than by rational and scientific conclusions. The new approach to sex [in the 1920s] based on scientific research helped make women more aware of and comfortable with their own sexual natures. Consequently, it was unacceptable to defenders of traditional gender expectations.

The new openness about sexuality, particularly female sexuality, evident after 1910 fueled a fundamentalist outcry against “sex hygiene” classes and other public discussions of sexual behavior, venereal disease, and reproductive anatomy. The only “anti-toxin” recommended for the “plague of sexology” was religion, and “the book which society needs to study is not so much physiology, as the Bible.”

Here we find attitudes and tactics which appear in just about every attack the Christian Right makes on any aspect of modernity. Tradition and religion should dictate how we behave; reason and science should be ignored whenever they contradict tradition. Scientific research brings about changes in how people behave and this, in turn, elicits a harsh reaction from self-proclaimed defenders of religious tradition. People are encouraged to feel comfortable about themselves; religion responds with ignorance and superstition.

The problems afflicting Americans can be traced to a lack of respect for religion and tradition; therefore, only religion and tradition can save everyone. It’s very important that people’s behavior change to conform to what religious leaders tell them — especially when it comes to gender roles and sexuality.

For America’s Christian Right, so much seems to begin and end with sex. Where other people enjoy their sexual liberty, the Christian Right sees sexual license. Where others insist on a sphere of privacy and sexual autonomy, the Christian Right believes that there should be greater control over everyone’s life.

 

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