The End of the Religious Right? 0
The article actually seems to argue for the end of the religious right as having an identity separate from the Republican Party.
The writer argues that the Religious Right as a self-identified movement has taken over the Republican Party while members of other Republican factions (constituencies?) are abandoning it, while more recent conservative religious leaders, such as Rick Warren, late of Much Ado over Not Much of Anything, as eschewing partisan politics.
Consequently, as it no longer exists as a separate movement. It and the Republican Party are becoming one.
I don’t know whether I agree, but it’s worth thinking about.
Michelle Goldberg in the Guardian:
(snip)
The Religious Right’s victory in taking over the Republican party contained the seeds of the movement’s failure. That’s because one of its founding myths is that it had widespread popular support, that it was, as Falwell named his organisation, a “moral majority”. In fact, it was simply a brilliantly organised minority faction, never big enough to win national elections on its own. Now it owns the rump of a fractured and discredited party. Dobson’s own organisation is in decline: Focus on the Family had to lay off a fifth of its workforce after the 2008 election. It’s becoming both irrelevant and redundant, because the Republican party has taken its place.
