The "Religious Right" hardly qualifies as any kind of organized movement,
either religious or political. It's simply people of faith whose theology
and politics tend toward the conservative side and who choose to exercise
their rights and responsibilities as citizens. From what I've seen, the
majority of the people who regularly talk about the"Religious Right" are
those who are opposed to conservative politics or theology (or both), and
find it easier to demonize "The Religious Right" as ambiguous and undefined
extremists rather than actually providing thoughtful, reasoned, and civil
responses to their arguments and positions. (For the record, I make no
assessment of Mr. Newsom in this regard because I haven't seen enough of his
writing to have an informed opinion. His post below certainly reminds me of
those types of those kinds of blanket assumptions and dismissals, but one
post does not an entire position make.)
Interestingly enough, there are certainly just as many people of faith whose
theology and politics tend toward the liberals side who also choose to
exercise their rights and responsibilities as citizens, but you never hear
anything about the Religious Left working in lockstep with, or part and
parcel of the Democratic Party.
For what it's worth, I wrote a piece for our campus paper about the mythical
bogeyman of the "Religious Right". It's at
http://www.dailynebraskan.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2000/02/25/38b6051e2?in_archive=1
if anybody's interested.
Brad Pardee
----- Original Message -----
From: "Newsom Michael" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "Law & Religion issues for Law Academics" <[email protected]>
Sent: Tuesday, June 21, 2005 3:24 PM
Subject: RE: Public university sponsorship of conference on "Examining
theReal Agenda of the Christian Right"
If the Religious Right were just a religious movement, there might be,
at least, a question. But the Religious Right is also a political
movement, working in lockstep with, or part and parcel of the Republican
Party.
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