In describing and accounting for the lives
of the Religious Right, which we define simply as religious conservatives with a considerable involvement in political activity, the book and the series tell the story primarily by focusing on leading episodes in the movement's history, including, but not limited to, the groundwork laid by Billy Graham in his relationships with presidents and other prominent political leaders; the resistance
of evangelical and other Protestants to the candidacy
of the Roman Catholic John F. Kennedy; the rise
of what has been called the New Right
out of the ashes
of Barry Goldwater's defeat in 1964; a battle over sex education in Anaheim, California, in the mid-1960's; a prolonged cultural war over textbooks in West Virginia in the early 1970's — and that is a battle that has been fought less violently in community after community all over the country; the thrill conservative Christians felt over the election
of a «born - again» Christian to the Presidency in 1976 and the subsequent disappointment they experienced when they found
out that Jimmy Carter was,
of all
things, a Democrat; the rise
of the Moral Majority and its infatuation with Ronald Reagan; the difficulty the Religious Right has had in dealing with abortion, homosexuality and AIDS; Pat Robertson's bid for the presidency and his subsequent launching
of the Christian
Coalition; efforts by Dr. James Dobson and Gary Bauer to win a «civil war
of values» by changing the culture at a deeper level than is represented by winning elections; and, finally, by addressing crucial questions about the appropriate relationship between religion and politics or, as we usually put it, between church and state.
I'm not among those that believe that the good
things the
Coalition is doing have no connection with the Liberal Democrats (for example, the push to get lower - paid workers
out of tax has much to do with them).
I think that the public felt the
thing had come
out of the blue as the result
of some arrangement between the
coalition partners and they didn't see why AV was such a big deal.
Sam Glover: It's the kind
of thing where you should probably reach
out to the
coalition and find resources and then mobilize, it sounds like.