The Religious Right vs. The Modern World

There is a vast cultural divide in the United States of America between the family values of the Religious Right, and the social values of the Liberal Left. The Religious Right is characterised by such priorities as: having creationism taught in schools alongside scientific biological theory; the teaching of ‘abstinence’ preferred over education about contraception; the right to bear arms; abortion viewed as murder; support for the death penalty; and a desperate need to preserve traditional America- the middle class, white, heterosexual, married family unit- which, by extension, means maintaining control of minorities and fringe elements.




The left fights against the status quo. It has laboured over and given birth to every piece of social progress throughout the history of the USA: civil rights, affirmative action, women’s liberation, Roe vs. Wade, the separation of church and state, and gay rights, to name a few. The battle for equality is still raging in each of these fields.




The seeming inconsistency of the Religious Right’s stances on various issues raises questions from outsiders. What does an anti-abortion stance have in common with gun legalisation? Why does someone who is pro-life support the death penalty? Why does someone who is pro-family argue that gay people should not be able to raise families? Why do we get the “war on drugs” from the Liberty-Bell ringers? And why does the predominantly Christian right appear to have little in common with Christianity’s central tenets of compassion, mercy, pacifism, equality and rejection of materialism, all of which are now accepted as the ideals of the secular left? As Barbara Ehrenreich so astutely points out in her book, Going To Extremes, “Policies of pre-emptive war and the upward redistribution of wealth are inversions of the Judeo-Christian ethic”.




It is not just the political positions of the Religious Right that are upside-down; even the results of those standpoints appear to be having the opposite of the intended effects. Recent studies show that “family values” are destroying the family. Conservative states in America have much higher rates of teenage pregnancies and divorce, and a lower percentage of university graduates than liberal states. One vivid example of the family values-style of “sex-ed” is the bizarre spectacle of the “purity ball”: an evening where teenage girls in ball gowns waltz across the floor in Daddy’s arms, and pledge their chastity to their father. In return, the father gives his daughter a “purity” ring, only to be removed by her future husband, who will replace it with a wedding band. A study has found that while these virginity pledges do not stop teenagers from having sex, the teenagers who do break their pledge and have sex are more likely to suffer from feelings of guilt, yet less likely to use protection against STIs or contraception, presumably due to a lack of information. Once the abstinence “method” of birth control fails, pregnant teenage daughters of conservative Christian parents often feel they have no option but to marry the father of their child, and these too-fast, too-young marriages often result in divorce. Sarah Palin, perhaps the world’s most vocal spokesperson for family values, illustrates this trend better than any statistic ever could, through the very public pregnancy of her single teenage daughter, Bristol. Bristol, carrying on in the great family tradition of unconscious irony, is engaged as a travelling spokesperson for abstinence and against teenage pregnancy, earning somewhere between $15,000 and $30,000 for each event.




In a desperate battle for self-preservation, Christian America occasionally employs brainwashing strategies that would not be out of place in one of its numerous cults. At the more fanatical end of the scale, there is the “Jesus Camp”, where Christian children are drilled in a militant hatred of all non-Christians. Add to that the re-writing of Texas school curriculum history books in an effort to promote Republican ideologies, the establishment of “Creation Science Museums” so that Christian children never have to hear about the “theory” of evolution, banning Ethnic Studies in Arizona, and the dubious reporting methods employed by Fox News, and you have all the ingredients for producing an ideologically homogenous demographic. Surely, family values should be safe.




Somehow, though, all of this control doesn’t manage to achieve the desired effect; stories of conservative Christian political and religious leaders who are exposed for illicit affairs - sometimes homosexual ones – are as much a part of the regular evening news as reports of child abuse by the Roman Catholic church. In-between scandals involving the juicy indiscretions of religious or political leaders, the news returns to the staple diet of fear-mongering and dishing out delicious details about those enemies that everyone loves to hate. Terrorism, the decline of the family, the impostor president, and crime (especially black crime) stories are mother’s milk; and perhaps, on some level, all the fear is justified. The United States as a whole boasts the highest rate of fire-arm related homicides in the developed world, the greatest inequality of income among wealthy nations, and the highest percentage of its own people incarcerated of any nation, including China. Within the USA, most of these statistics are concentrated in the “red” (Republican) states; Texas in particular. The states that most vigorously defend the private ownership of firearms for “self defence” are the places where the most people are killed by privately owned firearms. The cause-and-effect circle is running backwards.




The Religious Right’s Joan of Arc, Sarah Palin, is as much loved by her people for her folksy ways as Barack Obama is resented for his ivy-league education. She shines as a beacon of anti-choice, pro-gun, big-business ideology. A bulwark against the ever-rising tide of humanity demanding equality. A lone voice crying out against socialised medicine and big government. Sarah has recently announced that, as a matter of fact, the blame for the horrendous oil spill in the gulf of Mexico lies squarely with… environmentalists. Yes, she said that. As a matter of fact, Sarah would make the perfect queen for the teabagging movement- a grassroots protest fringe that owes much of its success to emotional Fox News personality Glenn Beck.




It’s clear why Glenn Beck would want to act in the best interests of his boss Rupert Murdoch, but the teabaggers themselves? Why do they protest against policies that are designed to give them health care and help lift them out of poverty? They seem to be so afraid of “Big Government” and public spending that they are willing to give up their chances of having permanent, comprehensive health coverage for themselves, their children, and their entire nation. What are they afraid of? George Lakoff believes he has the answer. Lakoff defines the Christian conservative worldview as the Strict Father Family Model, as opposed to the liberal worldview, The Nurturant Parent family model.




The Strict Father model links morality with prosperity. It is immoral to give people things they have not earned, because then they will not develop discipline. (Lakoff, 2004)




Lakoff reminds us that conservatives are not against all government. “They are not against the military, they are not against homeland defense, they are not against the current Department of Justice, nor against the courts, nor the Departments of Treasury and Commerce”. He has a point. Certainly, the Republicans were not complaining when George Bush initiated the 726 billion dollar war in Iraq or the 275 billion dollar war in Afghanistan (although at the time, of course, nobody could have imagined the cost would run so high). What they are against, according to Lakoff, is social programs and healthcare. Giving help to people who haven’t earned it in some way undermines the strict father model of society.




The strict father model is the blueprint for God’s relationship with His children, the government’s relationship with its citizens, America’s relationship with the rest of the world, and humankind’s relationship with nature. All are relationships based on dominion and submission. This is Lakoff’s explanation for why the religious right cannot accept gay rights- gay men have given up their role as the head of the household, because they have rejected the subordinate female, who, by her presence and acceptance of the order of things, gives the man his authority. Gay women have rejected the male head of the house, and thus have rejected God. Public acceptance of gay marriage threatens to unravel the fabric of society by replacing the strict father model with the nurturant parent model. The nurturant parent model, which is typified by open, equal, fearless dialogue between parents and children, is the model on which unions and welfare programs and the United Nations are based. The religious right instinctively sense this, which is why they fight so hard on every issue that threatens to change the social order.




Fortunately, there are sometimes sparks of hope in even the darkest bastions of right-wing ignorance. For example, It turns out that all along, George Bush’s wife Laura was secretly pro-choice and pro-gay marriage throughout her husband’s conservative presidency. One could speculate that perhaps Laura’s quietly tolerant private views made the difference between the outcome for her daughter, Jenna (who, after working for UNICEF, went on to become a children’s teacher and reading coordinator), and that of Sarah Palin’s daughter. If only Laura had found the courage to be a strength to the entire nation’s sons and daughters while her husband was in office (young gay people commit suicide every day at four times the rate of heterosexual teenagers because of the lack of acceptance they feel from society) her voice may have saved some lives. Her husband George, who recently stated that he condones the use of torture by America on its war prisoners, seems determined to continue to inflict damage on the planet even as a former president, while Laura continues to play the role of submissive Christian wife, maintaining the Strict Father model in both her family and the wider community.




With such fundamental world-view differences, what does the future hold? Will the two sides continue warring? Will religious conservatism become irrelevant, or will its usefulness to big business as a means of maintaining economic stratification ensure its survival? Will progressive thought be discredited in the minds of the public by such a large and powerful voice? It seems that the conservative voices in the media are growing ever more strident and some of the progress toward equality is slipping away.




If modern Western society were a person, one might say that the ‘50s was its innocent childhood, the ‘60s was its adolescence, the ‘70s was its rebellious and idealistic teenage years, the ‘80s was the career-focused young adulthood, and in the ‘90s it settled down with parenthood and a mortgage. The wild, idealistic dreams of the teenager seemed an embarrassing memory during the career years, but now, suddenly, there is the growing awareness that there was something about the seventies that has been lost, something of value. So much has been achieved, so much has been consumed, but… perhaps now it has entered its midlife crisis. Perhaps it is now the dawn of post-materialism, when society will re-discover that questioning, hopeful, rebellious youth it left behind in the seventies and make a break with tradition and the church in its maturity. One can hope.













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