I have a habit of reading things I intend to blog about, putting them aside to be written about later, and then forgetting about them. More accurately, I suppose, I put them aside, and when I pick them up again, I decide the post would be too untimely now. One item, on the verge of being “too old”, is the Sept. 12 editorial from the Charleston Gazette, titled “Shift?”.

The editorial discusses the “loosening of the bond between the GOP and hardline believers who denounce gays, abortion, sexy movies, stem cell research, evolution, sex education and the separation of church and state.” For some reason, the Gazette’s editorial staff (in their decidedly liberal-skewed view) seems to feel this is a good thing for Democrats. I don’t believe they’ve thought this through.

First, where does the Gazette think the Religious Right is going? The editorial doesn’t say that the “hardline believers” are becoming less hardline. Instead, it quotes a Voice of America treatise that said: “Republicans in Congress have not lived up to their commitments on issues such as restricting abortion or banning gay marriage.” If that is the major cause of the “break”, I’m not sure why the Gazette would consider it a win. Much like conservative-leaning libertarians who have been opting out of the Republican party in recent years, it sounds like these evangelicals are choosing to leave the party because it’s become too Democratic.

It seems unlikely that they are going to leave the Republican party for not being socially conservative enough and then run straight to the arms of the Democrats. After all, the Gazette quotes the Toronto Star’s analysis, “Is the Christian Right Withering?”, which said: “…Democratic contender Barack Obama, for instance, has accused the Christian right of promoting hate and challenged its contention that strict Christian values are integral to American society….” I’m pretty sure that’s not the way for the Democrats to win over these voters disillusioned by the Republican party.

Of course, it is possible that some of the former Religious Right will jump to the Democrats; if both parties are seen as too-liberal socially, then there’s nothing to stop these evangelicals from skipping over to the party that will provide liberal economic policies that Christ commanded^[a]:

“The Religious Right’s Era is Over” was the title of a recent Time commentary by Jim Wallis of Sojourners magazine. He said American religion “has had a negative image in the past few decades” because of fundamentalist politics, but now “we have entered the Post-Religious Right era.”

“Evangelicals — especially the new generation of pastors and young people — are deserting the Religious Right in droves,” the Time essay said. Churches are returning to more compassionate political goals such as helping the poor, increasing medical care, opposing war and similar humane ideals espoused by Jesus, Wallis wrote.

If Wallis (whose full article can be found here) is right, this shift could indicate a levelling of the playing field, making the issues the topic of debate, rather than the (often unrelated) religious beliefs of those on either side.

Liberals need to be cautious about celebrating the demise of the “religious right”, in that case. They’ve gotten by for quite a while now by attacking the Religious Right strawman, which allowed them to avoid any real debate. Imagine if they actually had to discuss partial-birth abortions (or abstinence^[b] education, voluntary prayer in schools, or education vouchers, or…) without their usual, shrill outcry about the Religious Right’s attempts to legislate Christian values Without the Religious Right strawman to beat up on, liberals may find themselves facing a much more formidable opponent. They may actually have to argue against the facts ^[c].

1. Whether Christ’s example really calls for Christians to forcibly rob from our neighbors to give to ensure equality of outcome and stand idly by, allowing atrocities to continue indefinitely, because we “oppose war” is debatable, I think, but that’s not the topic of this piece. [↩]
2. Note that I didn’t say abstinence only education [↩]
3. Actually, they probably won’t; the lack of a religious element to the gun rights debate hasn’t really forced them to face facts, come to think of it. [↩]