8 Strangest of Bedfellows: Why the Religious Right Embraced Trump and What That Means for the Movement

2020 ◽  
pp. 156-172
Keyword(s):  
Religious Right

A Religious Right to Discriminate

2015 ◽  
Vol 3 (2) ◽  
pp. 395-416 ◽  
Author(s):  
Travis Gasper
Keyword(s):  
Religious Freedom ◽  
Insurance Coverage ◽  
Moral Dilemmas ◽  
Health Insurance Coverage ◽  
Religious Right ◽  
Potential Harm ◽  
Marginalized Groups ◽  
The Supreme Court ◽  
Lgbt Community ◽  
Hobby Lobby

The Supreme Court in its 2014 decision in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby broadly expanded so-called religious freedom protections in the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (“RFRA”) by striking down a provision of the Affordable Care Act requiring employers to provide health insurance coverage for certain methods of contraception. In doing so, the Court opened the floodgates for employers to claim an exemption based upon any “sincerely held” religious belief. Without inquiry into the sincerity of that belief, businesses and corporations are free to adopt or assert beliefs that could lead to increased discrimination against employees. This is especially troublesome for marginalized groups like the LGBT community, which is already on the receiving end of discrimination under the pretext of religious exemptions. To correct any future misuse of these exemptions, Congress should amend RFRA to permit courts to assess the belief being asserted and contrast it with the potential harm if an exemption is allowed. The purpose of RFRA is to ease the burden faced by people of faith forced to go against their religious beliefs if they obey a certain statute. Easing this burden should focus on heady moral dilemmas, not mere inconveniences. Amending RFRA can ensure it maintains its initial purpose of protecting religious freedom, while not being used as a tool to perpetuate discrimination.

Secular State and the ‘Religious Left’: Navayana Buddhism and Dr Ambedkar’s Vision for the Future of Democracy in South Asia

2021 ◽  
pp. 239448112199595
Author(s):  
Kalinga Tudor Silva
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
South Asia ◽  
Religious Faith ◽  
Religious Right ◽  
Social Philosophy ◽  
European Origin ◽  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
Democratic Change ◽  
Religious Left ◽  
Secular State

In the light of ongoing debates about secular state and religious right in India, Sri Lanka and Myanmar, this article examines the intellectual contribution of Dr B. R. Ambedkar towards sustaining democracy in South Asia. His critical contributions included non-violent mobilisation of Dalits and adivasis around their human rights, identity, citizenship and religious faith. Most importantly, he argued that democratic values of equality, liberty and fraternity are not only of European origin but also have roots in South Asia, particularly within the Buddhist tradition. The article reflects on Ambedkar’s politics, social philosophy and contribution to the formation of ‘religious left’ and the process of progressive democratic change via Navayana Buddhism.

News on the 700 Club: The Cycle of Religious Activism

1994 ◽  
Vol 71 (4) ◽  
pp. 887-892 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert Abelman
Keyword(s):  
Content Analysis ◽  
Religious Right ◽  
Presidential Campaign ◽  
High Profile ◽  
The Past ◽  
News Program ◽  
The Media ◽  
Religious Activism

This content analysis evaluates political topics and themes of televangelist Pat Robertson's high-profile news program The 700 Club during the early months of the 1992 presidential campaign. Considered the media arm of the Religious Right, this program was found to go against the trend of increasingly political and less religious content observed in earlier analyses of equivalent episodes during the 1983, 1986, and 1989 seasons. In addition, political topics were addressed more neutrally than in the past. The study discusses the possible impact of an increasingly competitive telecommunication environment on religious broadcasters.

This Is Our Message

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emily Suzanne Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Gay Rights ◽  
Christian Right ◽  
Religious Right ◽  
Leadership Roles ◽  
Political Ideas ◽  
New Christian Right ◽  
Evangelical Women ◽  
Conservative Evangelical

During the rise of the modern religious right in the 1970s and 1980s, nationally prominent evangelical women played integral roles in shaping the priorities of this movement and mobilizing its supporters. In particular, they helped to formulate, articulate, and defend the traditionalist politics of gender and family that in turn made it easy to downplay the importance of their leadership roles. This book begins by examining the lives and work of four well-known women—evangelical marriage advice author Marabel Morgan, singer and anti-gay-rights activist Anita Bryant, author and political lobbyist Beverly LaHaye, and televangelist Tammy Faye Bakker. It examines their impact on the rise of the modern religious right and on the development of a national evangelical subculture, contributed to the rise of the New Christian Right by disseminating conservative political ideas in purportedly apolitical spaces. The final chapter underscores the ongoing significance of this history, through an analysis of Sarah Palin’s vice-presidential candidacy in 2008 and Michele Bachmann’s presidential bid in 2012. This chapter highlights the legacies of an earlier generation of conservative evangelical women who made these campaigns possible and who continue to impact our national conversations about gender, family, and sex.

scholarly journals Rationality and Politics

Philosophy ◽  
2005 ◽  
Vol 80 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-2
Keyword(s):  
Religious Right ◽  
Past Century ◽  
The Past ◽  
Made In

In the near universal dismay among ‘thinking’ Europeans at the re-election of President George W. Bush there has been one un-thinking notion which has reached cliché status so often has it been repeated.It is that what we saw in America on November 2nd was a manifestation, among 60 million Americans or so, of pre-Enlightened irrationality. Bush, this view has it, was elected by the religious right which, by definition, is anti-science. Ruling the roost in the world's only remaining super-power it is, almost by definition, dangerous. It is dangerously dogmatic in its opposition in principle to the progress made in moral matters by secularism over the past century or two, and dangerous in that it is a view which now has so much power behind it.

A King Cyrus President

2018 ◽  
Vol 42 (4) ◽  
pp. 502-522 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Barrett-Fox
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Action ◽  
The United States ◽  
Religious Right ◽  
Donald Trump ◽  
Moral Majority ◽  
Open Coding

Religious right leaders and voters in the United States supported Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election for the same reason that all blocs vote as they do: They believed that the candidate offered them the best opportunity to protect and extend their power and create their preferred government. The puzzle of their support, then, is less why they chose Trump and more how they navigated the process of inserting Trump into their story of themselves as a “moral” majority. This self-understanding promotes and exploits feelings of entitlement, fear, resentment, and the desire to dominate to encourage political action. Because Trump’s speeches affirm these feelings, religious right voters were open to writing a plot twist in their story, casting Trump as a King Cyrus figure, as their champion if not a coreligionist. This article analyzes appeals to and expressions of entitlement, fear, resentment, and the desire to dominate from more than 60 sermons, speeches, and books by religious right authors, Donald Trump, and Trump surrogates. Using open coding, it identifies themes in how these emotions are recognized, affirmed, and invoked by speakers, focusing on Trump’s Cyrus effect.

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