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RELIGIOUS RIGHT
Sociologyindex, Sociology Books 2012, Religious right, Classical Liberalism
'Religious right' is found frequently in the
United States (where its influence is chiefly located in the Reform Party).
'Religious right' refers to groups or
individuals who combine the economic conservatism of classical
liberalism
with the socially conservative views of many
fundamentalist religions, eg:
against abortion,
intolerant of homosexuality,
non-supportive of single parent mothers,
propose censorship of children's reading
material,
recommend reducing rights of criminal
offenders, etc.
Since these 'religious right' groups support an
economic doctrine which is gaining wide acceptance they are able to move into positions of
power and influence and their social views are giving shape to many aspects of life.
Ideology and Educational Policy: An Analysis of the
Religious Right
Benjamin Baez, V. Darleen Opfer
This article argues that the characterization of the Religious Right as irrational does
damage to progressive educational policy because it obscures the Religious Right's
effectiveness in influencing educational policy and is counterproductive for resistance
practices. The authors discuss briefly the common views of the Religious Right and
critique those views on the basis of their own claims. They suggest an alternative
conceptualization of the Religious Right, one that rejects the rational/irrational
dichotomy of the prevailing views. They argue that the imperatives of the Religious Right
are guaranteed by the prevailing ideology of the Christian, liberal state. The authors
contend that counteracting the Religious Right requires a recognition of this prevailing
ideology and the discursive practices that maintain it.
The Religious Right and Public Education: The Paranoid
Politics of Homophobia
Catherine A. Lugg
With the political rise of the U.S. Religious Right, public educators, administrators, and
policy makers have faced numerous charges that public schools promote homosexuality. These
charges have been made regardless of the actual content of various programs and curricula.
Nevertheless, the typically incendiary charges seem an effective political tool in
derailing and/or reshaping educational reform and program offerings. Drawing upon the
methodologies of social historiography and historical policy analysis, this author
examines the use of strategic homophobia by the Religious Right in their quest to
"take back America,"concluding with a general discussion of homophobia, paranoid
politics, and implications for educational policy makers and public school personnel. -
epx.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/12/3/267
Curriculum Challenge from the Religious Right
The Impressions Reading Series
Louise Adler, California State University, Fullerton
Kip Tellez, University of Houston
The Impressions reading series, which was marketed as a "whole language" program
in California, was challenged by parents who charged that it promoted disrespect for
parents, satanism, and witchcraft. Case study analysis of the challenges in 22 school
districts revealed that the challenges clustered around specific geographic locations and
time periods illustrating the political mobilization of religious right groups. Organized
teacher support was found to be important in maintaining use of the series, and some
teachers perceived the challenges as a test of their professional judgment. Most of the
districts where the series was challenged continue to use at least parts of the series.
However, the challenges to Impressions were more likely to result in removal of the books
than were other challenges in California. The Impressions challenges were found to
represent a watershed in the history of textbook adoption. -
uex.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/27/2/152
The Religious Right in the State of Israel
ARTHUR HERTZBERG
The modern Jewish quest for a homeland arose in the nineteenth century in Europe. From the
beginning there was tension between a secular nationalism and a more religiously based
one. Religious fundamentalism is a political factor today in Israel, as elsewhere in the
Middle East. Governments in this region would best avoid their overthrow at the hands of
religious fundamentalists by working together. -
ann.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/483/1/84
On the Prospect of Linking Religious-Right Identification with Political Behavior:
Panacea or Snipe Hunt?
M. V. Hood III & Mark Caleb Smith
Although it is a popular topic, the religious right is understudied in two areas. First,
scholars have not developed an agreed-upon profile of religious-right adherents at the
individual level. Second, little is known about how religious-right status functions as a
predictor of political behavior. There is a possibility that religious-right status
functions similarly to party identification, as an indicator that is both related to a
wide range of variables and capable of functioning independently of those variables as a
predictor of political behavior. Using multivariate statistical techniques we analyze
survey data that allows respondents to self-identify as members of the religious right. We
find that religious-right identifiers are social and theological conservatives who
demonstrate high levels of religious commitment. However, they are neither monolithically
Republican nor ideologically conservative. Religious-right status does have cross-cutting
characteristics, for it is fluid across partisan, ideological, and denominational lines.
This status is not, however, politically distinguishing as whatever impact it has on
political behavior is apparently subsumed by traditional political variables. -
blackwell-synergy.com
Identity Politics and the Religious Right: Hiding Hate in the Landscape
Carolyn Gallaher
Identity theory has had important theoretical implications for analysis of political
action, but has tended mostly to examine identity formation and political action on the
left. Any theory concerned with eradicating oppression must also analyze identity
formation and political action of groups on the right whose politics are often based on
exclusion and hate. Thus the empirical part of this paper focuses on the religious right,
specifically Liberty University, in Lynchburg, Virginia. The potency of the religious
right lies in an identity politics which simultaneously asserts that fundamentalists are
essentially different from those "of the world" but should nonetheless equate
themselves politically with economic conservatives. This allows Liberty to borrow freely
from the symbols and trappings of economic conservatism while blurring the hate and
antagonistic othering inherent in essentialist notions of fundamentalist identity. -
blackwell-synergy.com
The Passion of the Right: Religious Fundamentalism and the Crisis of Democracy
Henry A. Giroux, McMaster University
This article argues that under the presidency of George Bush, the Republican Party has
increasingly become an extension of the religious right. One consequence is a rampant
anti-intellectualism coupled with Taliban-like moralism now boldly translates into
everyday cultural practices and political policies as right-wing evangelicals live out
their messianic view of the world. Democratic politics and secular humanism are being
replaced by a "Rapture" politics in which certainty, moralism, and absolutism
drive an attack on science in the name of faith by endorsing Creationism over the teaching
of evolution, wage an unrelenting war against gay rights and women’s reproductive
rights, and use an appeal to the "culture of life" to support pharmacists who
refuse to fill prescriptions for contraception on religious grounds. The attack on
religious freedom and secular thought reproduces a debilitating anti-intellectualism
throughout the culture and also threatens the separation of church and state, religious
freedom, social justice, and democracy. The rise of religious fundamentalism has become
one of the great problems facing the United States in the 21st century. The article calls
for a cultural politics that defends religious freedom and the values of secular humanism
as part of a defense of an inclusive democracy. The article concludes by calling for
educators, parents, artists, and others reject the highly political and sectarian uses to
which religion is being put by reclaiming those democratic values in which religious
freedom rejects the use of religion as a political sectarian tool of the extreme right.
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