Did The Christian Right Wait Too Long For Their Patience To Pay? (VIDEO)


For years now, Republicans have associated themselves with religion. Many Republicans now base their platforms on religion and faith. Republicans started targeting religious people specifically during the 1960s and 1970s. They were trying to appeal to the growing evangelical Christian community of that time – the Christian right.

In 1961, televangelist Pat Robertson founded the Christian Broadcasting Network (CBN). A short year later, he had a big topic to talk about. In 1962, the Supreme Court ruled in Engle v. Vitale that an official school prayer is unconstitutional. The fundamentalists, or fundies as they’re known, overreacted.

They said the law completely banned school prayer, but it didn’t. Students could still pray on their own, but the school just could not teach students to be Christian, or any other religion. They can teach about religion, though. Big difference.

In 1963, Murray v. Curlett declared school-sponsored Bible reading unconstitutional. All the case did was make schools neutral on religion, but the fundies considered that ruling a persecution. The New York Times reported that this case was the beginning of the rise of Fundamentalism in the 1960s.

This happened at the same time that Americans were worried about Communism, and Christians thought they were losing privileges, so they started getting more involved in politics.

Before the election of Jimmy Carter in 1976, no presidential candidate had ever openly talked about being “born again,” or openly talked about their faith and their politics.

The Christian Right got their president in 1980 when they elected Ronald Reagan. In 1981, according to Salon, the Sarasota Journal wrote:

“The merging of the political right with the religious right has taken the country by surprise.”

Now, religion has taken over the Republican Party almost completely. Many of these people believe that they are being persecuted now.

Since the same-sex marriage ruling came down, many religious people feel they are at odds with the law. We had the now infamous Kim Davis in Kentucky who refused to hand out marriage licenses to same-sex couples.

Many of the Republican candidates were, and are, trying to pander to the Religious Right. Ben Carson said:

“They shouldn’t automatically assume that because you believe that marriage is between one man and one woman that you are a homophobe … and this is one of the myths that the left perpetrates on our society, and this is how they frighten people and get people to shut up.”

These days, the Christian right appears to be decreasing in numbers. They’ve had patience, but did they wait too long?

One in four Millennials don’t subscribe to any kind of religious belief, according to a Pew Research poll, and people are more tolerant in general. We legalized same-sex marriage. The majority of Americans are pro-choice.

To retaliate, Republican run states are passing “religious freedom” laws to allow the religious right to discriminate against anyone because of their religion. Real Christians will tell you that this is not what being a Christian is.

 

Featured image by Ian T. MacFarland via Flickr, available under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

 

Hi, I'm from Huntsville, AL. I'm a Liberal living in the Bible Belt, which can be quite challenging at times. I'm passionate about many issues including mental health, women's rights, gay rights, and many others. Check out my blog weneedtotalkaboutmentalhealth.com