There are those who say the Religious Right is dead, even as the Left tries to co-opt the evangelicals who form its core.  This has been a hot topic as of late, with the 2008 Presidential race heating up.

The Left loves to portray the Religious Right as some insidious, extreme, relatively new influence that foisted itself upon America, when, in fact, the Religious Right (RR) arose as a response to organized and extremist Leftist activism that sought to reshape America and Western civilization.  These people in the RR organized to conserve the culture – the traditions, institutions, morals, ideals, and standards – that they saw as worth conserving.  There would be no organized Religious Right if it weren’t for things like Roe v. Wade and other landmark court decisions.

Leftist activists, atheists, parental authority subverters, abortion pushers, gender confusion advocates, and porn-pushing hedonists had organized and were exerting influence from within and over politics, media, academia, corporate America, and even churches.  Their tactics included undermining parental authority, reducing church influence in the public square, and reducing self-discipline with the ultimate goal of transferring reliance on self, family, and church to reliance on the state, thus making it easier to spread the costs of malignant narcissistic hedonism to society at large while disarming that society’s ability to reinforce traditional behavioral constraints.  In practical terms, this meant bringing homosexuality out of the bedroom and into every aspect of life.  This meant denying the differences in the sexes.  This meant immodesty in attire and behavior.  This meant men and women abdicating their restraints, roles, and responsibilities.  This meant removing reminders that our nation was founded by Christians.  This meant ostracizing the devout.

The results have not been good.  Judging from what their activists are saying, radical feminists, homosexuality advocates, and atheists are still feeling uncomfortable, insecure, excluded, oppressed, and offended.  So, according to them, their goals have not been realized.  Meanwhile, the negative effects from the changes have touched every area of our lives.  Easy access to contraception and abortion was going to provide us with guilt-free and consequence-free sex, and make sure that no child would be born into an abusive situation or into poverty.  Didn’t happen.  Shacking up was going to make sure that people only got married if they were right for each other and ready.  Didn’t happen.  Instead, we had an explosion of STDs, including AIDS, and divorce.  Too many people can no longer clearly see the difference between real marriage and counterfeits.  We have more broken homes.  Children are being abused, neglected, or primarily raised by a series of strangers and exposed to an endless line "surrogate parents" (their parents' sex partners).  Newborn babies are being thrown into dumpsters even where there is easy access to abortion and where babies can be surrendered safely with no strings attached in the first 72 hours after birth.  Human beings are being treated like commodities.  There has been an increase in emotional, social, and behavioral disorders.  And, surprise – there has been increased dependence on federal government.

While the past was never perfect, the present results of Leftist activism has made many things worse.  Even as people didn’t always live by their ideal morals, it was understood that sexuality was a private matter, that sex was best saved for marriage, that men should aspire to be masculine or at least not feminine, that women should aspire to be feminine or at least not masculine, that children were best raised within a marriage, and that parents should be supported in childrearing instead of undermined.  The Christian aspects of our national heritage were acknowledged and respected, even though everyone knew that non-Christians and even non-theists were a part of our society, too.  Commercial entertainment was sought after to inspire and reinforce good, not feed off of and push our lusts.

The thing about the Left trying to disarm the Religious Right by trying to herd evangelicals into their corner is… the result, if they were to succeed, would be ugly.  Even more churches would fail to be salt and light to the world.  Higher taxes would be seen as a replacement for private charity.

One of the frequent criticisms of the RR is that they are intolerant and want to control the bedrooms of other people.  My experience has been that most in the RR simply want what goes on in the bedroom to stay in the bedroom and for people to accept the consequences of their private actions.  While they condemn what they think is negative deviance, that is not the same thing as being intolerant.

Meanwhile, the Left wants even more control over your wallet, your closet, your workplace, your investments, your dinner table, your children, your car, and your speech.

If the RR were to die, the results would be very bad.  Thankfully, it hasn’t died.  But the Left will keep dreaming.