American Freedom Enhanced by Demise of Bush-Era Christian Right
The Bush-era Christian right's influence on public policy isn't quite dead since John McCain's resounding defeat in the presidential election, but its political-extremist pull has faded drastically.
As a result, Americans, post-George Bush, are freer to enjoy life and liberty without narrow social-policy prohibitions forced on them by a religiously conservative minority.
The Demise of Aging Evangelical Leaders
Witness the demise, or political back-pedalling, of the aging leaders of the conservative evangelical Christian movement:
- Earlier this year, Dr. James Dobson stepped down from Focus on the Family ("Focus"), the formerly powerful conservative Christian organization he founded two decades ago, after being forced to make significant staff cutbacks. Focus pumped more than $600,000 into the drive to pass California's anti-gay right Proposition 8 last November.
Dobson bitterly noted in his farewell speech, "We are awash in evil and the battle is still to be waged... Humanly speaking, we can say we have lost all those battles."
- Dr. Laura Schlessinger, radio personality and icon to the religious right community, recently voiced a new, friendlier tone toward same-gender couples.
Schlessinger demurred last week to CNN's astonished Larry King when asked about gay marriage "I'm very big on human beings finding love, attachment and commitment and being faithful to it... that two people would have that sort of commitment to me is very healthy and very positive thing in their lives and society as a whole." (Her sole objection is now limited to calling such a partnership "marriage.")
- Likewise for Baptist Pastor Rick Warren, who famously commented merely four months ago to BeliefNet:
WARREN - "... I'm opposed to having a brother and sister being together and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to an older guy marrying a child and calling that marriage. I'm opposed to one guy having multiple wives and calling that marriage.
BELIEFNET- Do you think those are equivalent to gays getting married?
WARREN - Oh , I do."
Last week, best-selling author Rick Warren told Larry King, " I am not an anti-gay or anti-gay-marriage activist. I never have been, never will be. During the whole Proposition 8 thing, I never once went to a meeting, never once issued a statement, never—never once even gave an endorsement in the two years Prop 8 was going."
Warren's newly gay-friendly comment, though, was inaccurate. See this this pre-election YouTube clip uploaded in the last few days, in which Warren declared, "I urge you to support Proposition 8, and pass that on. … Everybody knows what I believe about it."
At the very last minute, after this embarrassingly contradictory relevation, Warren cancelled his long-scheduled appearance yesterday on ABC This Week, citing "exhaustion."
Rev. Jerry Falwell, founder 30 years ago of the Moral Majority, died of a heart attack in 2007. Dr. James Kennedy of the conservative Coral Ridge Ministries also died in 2007.
Rev. Pat Robertson is now jointly promoting climate change action in TV ads with liberal firebrand Rev. Al Sharpton, hawking an "age-defying protein shake," and supporting his aid and poverty relief organization, Operation Blessing.
Americans' Freedom of Choice Enhanced
As a direct result of the radically faded influence of the older generation of Christian ultra-right leaders...
- Democratic President Barack Obama lifted the ban on embryonic stem cell research, thereby opening the gate for potential scientific breakthroughts that could help alleviate suffering from spinal cord injuries, multiple sclerosis, diabetes, Parkinson's disease, cancer, Alzheimer's disease and hundreds of immune system and genetic disorders.
- Four states have legalized same-gender marriage, and the District of Columbia has agreed to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
- President Obama struck down a religious right-based rule that prohibited U.S. money from funding international family-planning clinics that provide counseling or referrals about abortion services. Said Population Action International, "President Obama's actions will help reduce the number of unintended pregnancies, abortions and women dying from high-risk pregnancies because they don't have access to family planning."
- President Obama "has begun consulting his top defense advisers on how to lift a ban on gays serving openly in the military," and is widely expected to relax or end the ban, which is known as don't ask, don't tell."
- Given his commitment to protecting abortion rights, President Obama is expected to nominate potential Supreme Court justices who will not overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling.
In short, Americans' freedom of choice for their private lives has been greatly enhanced by the demise of the aging, Bush-era Christian conservative movement.
New Generation of Young Evangelical Christian Leaders
No one begrudges the right of religious conservatives to freely make choices for their own lives: to reject for their families gay marriage, abortion, reproductive freedoms, embryonic stem cell therapy, and other issues they find objectionable.
But in our secular-based democracy, they have no moral right to impose their religious-based choices on the rest of us.
As Jennifer Pizer, director of a gay rights legal advocacy group, expressed to the Washington Post, "We are not required to pay the price for other people's religious views about us."
As a progressive Christian, I celebrate the passing of pervasive Christian conservative influence on public policy... and pray that the new generation of young evangelical Christian leaders doesn't similarly squander time, resources and their reputations on political bullying.
- Related Reading
- Obama & Warren: Public History of the Pastor and the Politician
- Obama's Office of Faith-Based & Neighborhood Partnerships
(Photo #1 of Dr. James Dobson with President George Bush on May 1, 2008 at the National Prayer Breakfast: Win McNamee/Getty Images)
(Photo #2 of Pastor Rick Warren awarding an International Medal of Peace to former President Bush on Dec 1, 2008: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Comments
As an actual student of religious philosophy, inter alia, and as a Universal Life Church minister interested in social justice for people of all walks and ranks and beliefs and non-belief in the USA and globally, I agree it was heartening to see the worst parts of Calvinismmainly “predestination” which says even scammed, cheated elderly are “God’s damned and society’s shunned”…lose the rubber faith-based stamp that was Bush II’s administration.
But looking at the way so little seems to be changing for everyday people re economic concerns, we have to be on guard that the private or sub-Federal “big sticks” that were Bush’s “teeth” aren’t still taking huge bites away from most of us, with eye towards that ol’ “special Calvinistic” presdetination theory that would consign most “losers” to squelched rights, prisons for made-up reasons, “joblessness as national security terror recruitment possibility”, or what have you…there are, after all, more people in media and private elite business control of jobs left than there are Obamas and like-talking moderates.
I concur.
We all still have to watch out for hidden agendas being implemented by hidden agents of the religious right.
Although I see things in this article that are justified, I think it’s overtly too simple and somewhat incorrect to say the ‘Christian’ right. I have friends that are Christian but still support Stem Cell research and Gay Marriage, so I don’t think being Christian has anything to do with it, being right wing and a neo-con on the other hand does.
Whenever I read the ramblings of self-described self -important “scholars” or BS matchbook cover “ministers” I can see the true
point of their need to spew their “views” is nothing more than a pathetic need to feel relevant about something. Such drivel.
We are going through nothing more than Christ went through when He walked the earth. There is a Choice to be made in Everything we do. The Lord shows us which way to go in His word. And people do today just as they did in the bible days, they laughed, spit, and denounced Jesus even after experiencing his miracles which still happen today. The choice is yours individually. I do not support anything that I feel is not biblically based, Unfortunately in my 40+ years on this earth, I have not seen a sold out christian president that shoots straight from the bible. There is an easy explanation for this however, WE ARE ALL SINNERS AND FALL SHORT. There is only one person that has ever walked this earth and not sinned….JESUS…And there will Never be another. Stop expecting a mere mortal man to be Perfect. We all have to give an account of our OWN actions, even the Presidents. Given the opportunity we should all express our belief knowing that in the end Jesus WILL prevail.