WI: Marginalized Christian Right / Secularized USA

[Sian]

What would be the best way to marginalize the OTL Moralistic Christian Right as a political factor, so while the opinions they might well still exist in the most evangelical circles, they have little to no practical reach into the political sphere. With the result of the political system being heavily secularized, not just in name but in deed as well.

The claim for doing such could easily be framed with the Constitutions Article 6 (clause 6, no religious test) and Amendment 1, leading to a conclusion that religion have no place in politics, and that your religious right ends at the tip of your nose, and that you don't have any religious right to deny others from stuff, leading to free abortion, free pornography, competent SexEd, little to no education funds used on creationism or intelligent design and so on and so forth.

If the change is late enough (and hence from the group losing power, instead of never surfacing as a mainstream movement) could it then be hammered through by drawing similarities between the Christian Right and Sharia?

 

[GSpectre]

IMHO the best place to marginalize the political christian right would be a Bush win over Reagan, the 'Christian right' was in the process of switching away from their support of the democrats and into supporting republicans, and they made up a large portion of Reagans base. Have the republicans think that pandering to them is going to be a non viable strategy and they are out in the cold, with their leaders discredited. The Dems wont take them back, as they would be a Carter legacy and he hadn't built up his image like he did later after leaving the presidency, his legacies were considered toxic at that point in time. If Bush got in over Reagan then i can see a return to of the Nixionian wing of the party under a different name. That said i don't think the US would ever end up as left wing as you have posited, US politics tend to the right for a whole host of reasons, the majority have little or nothing to do with the Christian right.

 

[Sian]

That said i don't think the US would ever end up as left wing as you have posited

See, I don't think that any of these issues would be left-wing in a sufficiently secular nation ... Its only considered left-wing qua its opposition to the religious conservatives that have tied their horse in front of the Right wing. Hell, Pornography in particular have a relatively large hatedom on the left-wing due to feminists (and from them, SJWs) considering it degrading towards women.

 

[GSpectre]

See, I don't think that any of these issues would be left-wing in a sufficiently secular nation ... Its only considered left-wing qua its opposition to the religious conservatives that have tied their horse in front of the Right wing. Hell, Pornography in particular have a relatively large hatedom on the left-wing due to feminists (and from them, SJWs) considering it degrading towards women.

In todays political spectrum these are left wing issues, and at least pornography has a long history of Americans banning or otherwise regulating it. Miller V California was before the rise of the realigous right, and while that ruling did create the three tiered exception system for obscenity laws it did not strike them down. Socially Americans tend to be prudish by European standards, but i am unsure as to the cause. Religion is probably a part of that, but how much would keeping religion out of politics effect societal mores? Given that the clergy in the early abortion debate were forced to the right by the people in the pews... I tend to think not a lot. The question in my mind is without the religious right what would the drivers that brought them to power bring about in their place?

 

[Sian]

In todays political spectrum these are left wing issues

As said, I believe thats more due to being in opposition to the Relgious Right, than any innate connection to the left wing

and at least pornography has a long history of Americans banning or otherwise regulating it.

So do most if not all of the rest of the world ... only nation off the top of my head that haven't banned it might be Japan, but they still have some very hilarious ideas when it comes to censorship, and a lot of it I suspect is due to cultural pressure from specially US following WW2.

Socially Americans tend to be prudish by European standards, but i am unsure as to the cause. Religion is probably a part of that

I'm quite certain that religion is a major part of it, as European standards really aren't ... the religious/catholic southern Europe is quite prudish, when held up against northern Europe (specially Netherlands, Germany and Scandinavia), all of which are rather secularized as well. But are they secularized because they aren't prudish or aren't they prudish because they're secularized ... and in reverse, are Southern Europe and America prudish because of their relative religiousness, or are they religious because of being innately more prudish ... as mentioned, I'm inclined to believe that Religion is the (/a?) deciding factor in how prudish you are

 

[Some Bloke]

Maybe spice things up a bit with an influential religious left. People complaining about
bible bashing do gooders interfering with health care and gun control etc.

 

[Alexander the Average]

I could see it as the side-effect of a Goldwater Presidency (assuming a much less suicidal foreign policy for the sake of electability/not destroying all human life). Given his historical opposition to the influence of evangelical Christianity in the GOP and support for LGBT struggles, I can see his brand of faith and sexuality is a private matter conservative secularism becoming quite influential in Republican circles. If things go far enough the GOP might even become seen as the natural allies of the LGBT community (or at least the wealthier sections of it), which would likely alienate the evangelical right.

 

[Berat2beti]

As Social Justice Warriors show just cause the religious right is marginalized doesn't mean the same kind of stupid isn't on the left secular side. Feminazi's who believe everything is sexist, people who believe in "white male privilege", and just about every thing else you can find on the crazy far left videos on YouTube... So the stupidity doesn't end it just changes skins

 

[Lost Freeway]

-snip-

Congratulations, you just dug your own grave.

 

[Berat2beti]

Congratulations, you just dug your own grave.

How so? if the picture shows anything it's clearly gamers that are being oppressed and marginalized by this opressive right and left! In fact I feel so triggered by this I demand that Gamers get a "safe space" free of all the "pop culture studies professors" and white knights of the Internet! It's my right and if you deny me it that's racist, and sexist....see now replace words like "safe space" with making "safe moral filled slots in tv and video games" and it all means the same thing just different words.

 

[CalBear]

As Social Justice Warriors show just cause the religious right is marginalized doesn't mean the same kind of stupid isn't on the left secular side. Feminazi's who believe everything is sexist, people who believe in "white male privilege", and just about every thing else you can find on the crazy far left videos on YouTube... So the stupidity doesn't end it just changes skins

Seriously?

This is a pretty heavy troll post.

Any chance of this being a warning disappeared when you actually used the term Feminazi unironically in a sentence.

Don't do this again.

 

[Minty_Fresh]

The moral majority was a reaction to the excesses of the New Left. So avoid the New Left and the social upheaval of the 60s-early 70s and religion continues on as a bipartisan political concept.

Abortion can be kept as a Catholic issue without the influential Whatever Happened to the Human Race? book.

 

[Sian]

Anyone else with suggestions as of how this could be handled, or did the troll kill all interest?

 

[sciscisciortino]

It wasn't just the New Left (the "permissive society" emerged in the rest of the industrialized world too) but also rooted in backlash to segregation, America's peculiar civic-political relationship to religion and arguably the death of the traditional social institutions talked about in Bowling Alone.