Thursday 8 November 2012

Spot on analysis by Damian Thompson

The Religious Right is dead
He won't be electing a President any time soon


Guys – have a quick puff of your joint before heading down the aisle with your boyfriend. In addition to re-electing Obama, various American states voted to legalise dope and gay marriage. OK, so they weren't necessarily the same states, but you get the picture. Last night was a victory for secular liberal America – or, to put it another way, America's emerging secular liberal majority. The United States is still pious by European standards, but the gap is narrowing every year. You cannot visit American bookshops without being struck by the popularity of atheist cheerleaders or agnostic self-help gurus; when I meet a young New Yorker or Californian I assume – as I would in Britain – that they don't go to church, have liberal positions on abortion and homosexuality and generally despise the conservative religious activism that, until so recently, had the power to elect presidents.
Two points worth noting about this election. First, the Religious Right – and how dated that phrase already sounds – united around a candidate who, by most standards, is not even a Christian. The lack of an anti-Mormon backlash among orthodox Catholics and Protestants who were brought up to regard Latter-day Saints as sinister cultists tells its own story. Also, and here I'm going out on a limb, America has just re-elected its first post-Christian president (unless you count Jefferson). I've never thought that Barack Obama's churchgoing was anything more than Chicago politics: why else would a sophisticated Harvard-educated lawyer sit through years of incoherent ranting by the Rev Jeremiah Wright?
I'll return to this theme, but even the Tea Party wasn't the Religious Right – at least, not at first. When Christian fundamentalists jumped on board, that's when public support began to bleed away.
Americans: welcome to Europe. You may miss the City on the Hill but, hey – no one's going to give you a hard time if you stay in bed on Sunday morning.

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