The Religious Wrong

In the modern day we have come up with a number of terms to define our politicians and the political ideologies held by many within the general public. It appears that with each passing year these terms becoming increasingly muddled as to their true meaning. Many of them are given a negative connotation such as being a “liberal”, “progressive”, or God forbid “socialist”. However, a surprising number of these terms have been turned the other way around and have been played up. An example of this are the terms “pro-life” and “pro-choice”. Both of those terms have been altered in a way to make them seem positive in their own light and make opposition to them seem evil. I mean do you know anyone among you who would seriously call themselves “anti-life”? However, this note is not about the abortion debate but rather another one of these positively twisted terms.

The term “The Religious Right” (sometimes known as The Christian Right) has become quite a buzzword in our modern political discourse. It too contains many of the elements found in the slants given to the terms “pro-life” and “pro-choice”. The term “The Religious Right” has built into itself a mechanism that gives the impression that those who are not on the political right are not religious. I suppose if there was also the term “The Religious Left”, then there might be an acceptable counter-balance that would nullify the argument. However, in our modern media and in conversations all across the country the term “The Religious Left” does not exist.

At this point many readers (particularly those on the right) might try to raise the issue that there is not a religious equivalent term for those on the left wing because left wing politics is not as open to the religious. They will probably point to statistics that show that there are fewer “practicing religious” within the Democratic (as well as other left leaning parties) Party than within the Republican Party. The fact of the matter is that there is nothing incorrect about that statement. After all, we are a vastly majority Christian nation with a mixture of other faiths and those of no faith at all. The truth is that a small majority of those who call themselves Christians do vote for Republicans. However, there is a catch.

Perhaps because of a lack of a counterbalancing term and the fact that stereotypes still persist about the morality of liberals, it is often believed that it is more holy or spiritual to support and vote for right wing candidates. Now, do not get me wrong, I am not suggesting that the fact that we do not say “The Religious Left” leads more religious people to vote Republican. What I am suggesting is that the fact that there is not nearly enough attention paid to the actual policies of the left and right wing in relation to the public’s actual religious beliefs. (continued below)