JohnEngelman
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Not by Politics Alone: the Enduring Influence of the Christian Right, by Sara Diamond is better than it might have been. Sara Diamond is a Berkeley radical. The Christian Right (AKA, the Religious Right) stands in the way of every direction secular leftists want the United States to move in. The first significant triumph of the Christian Right was to prevent the Equal Rights Amendment from being added to the United States Constitution. More recently, the Christian Right achieved its long term goal of getting the United States Supreme Court to overturn the Roe vs Wade Decision of 1973.
Sara Diamond writes, “The 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion was the single most galvanizing event in the history of the Christian right. Not by Politics Alone was published in 1998.
This book could have been an angry polemic. It is not. Rather it is a fair minded history of the Christian Right, one which emphasizes leaders and organizations. It could have been a better book. Sara Diamond writes, “this is not a book about why people as individuals, join and participate in social movements…I reject the idea of explaining political ideology and activism through some form of psychoanalysis.” She does write, “Religious broadcasting…has been the movement’s most important resource.”
“The Hastings Center Report, August 11, 1981, pp 14-17 says:
“the audience of Christian television…is over 60 percent female…Only 15 percent of the very committed television viewers have attended college and 41 percent of them report less than $10,000 [a year] income.”
Why does a movement that is predominately female and lower middle class promote male domination and support a political party whose main goal is to make the rich richer? I have speculative answers to that question, but first I will outline Sara Diamond’s history of the Christian right.
The Christian right began during the beginning of the Cold War and the McCarthy Era. Nevertheless, few people noticed or cared until 1979 when Jerry Falwell formed the Moral Majority. The name of the organization implied that most Americans agreed with Falwell on abortion, gay rights, prayer and Bible reading in the schools, and much else, but that the “moral majority” of Americans were thwarted by a powerful but small minority of “secular humanists.”
For a membership fee one could become a card carrying member of the Moral Majority. For a subscription fee one could subscribe to Falwell’s magazine The Fundamentalist. Every Sunday one could watch a television broadcast from Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia.
In 1976 most Evangelicals voted for Jimmy Carter for president. Nevertheless, as president Carter declined to promote a Constitutional Amendment to outlaw abortion.
In August 1980 Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan spoke at a National Affairs Briefing in Dallas, Texas, that attracted fifteen thousand people. Reagan said, “I know you can’t endorse me. I want you to know that I endorse you.”
That was all Reagan needed to get the support of most Christian conservatives. It seemed not to bother them that as governor of California Reagan had signed a law legalizing abortion, and that he rarely attended church.
Reagan played the Christian right like a virtuoso. He knew that the Christian right spoke for a large constituency whose support the Republican Party would need in close elections. He also knew that many Republicans and likely Republican voters did not particularly like the Christian right. During the 1980’s public opinion surveys indicated that Jerry Falwell was one of the more unpopular public figures. Finally, Reagan knew that Christian conservatives would be satisfied with rhetorical support.
Rhetorical support was all the Christian right got from Reagan. During the eight years he was president abortion remained legal. Prayer and Bible reading in public schools remained illegal. The gay rights movement made slow but steady progress, despite – or perhaps because of – the AIDS epidemic. Of the three justices President Reagan nominated to the Supreme Court, two voted to preserve Roe vs Wade.
Reagan did not care. The issues that pumped adrenaline into his veins were fighting Communism and making the rich richer.
In 1989 Falwell disbanded the Moral Majority claiming, “Our goal has been achieved.” Actually, the Moral Majority had achieved nothing. Contributions to the Moral Majority were declining.
By the late 1980’s televangelists were becoming a laughing stock. Oral Roberts, whose contributions were also declining, warned his dwindling followers that God would call him home unless they contributed eight million dollars.
James Bakker confessed to an adulterous affair with his secretary, who might have been a virgin.
Jimmy Swaggart was exposed as being the frequent client of a prostitute.
Sara Diamond wrote, “The public was entertained by the sight of hypocrites falling off their pedestals…The image was one of ridiculous scoundrels.”
It was easy for its opponents to imagine that the Christian right had been laughed off of the stage. Nevertheless, Christian right activists moved away from national issues to local issues where they could be effective. These consisted of things like getting school libraries to remove certain books, requiring school sex education classes to teach abstinence only, and repealing local gay rights laws.
In her Conclusion Sara Diamond wrote, “As of 1998 there is no sign of a coming revival on the left…the Christian right [has] won a great measure of legitimacy.”
What motivates these people? To find an answer we should turn to The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind, by Jason Weeden and Robert Kurzban.
Most of us have heard of promiscuous people raised in religious families who stop going to church when they leave home. Weeden and Kurzban point out that many monogamous people raised in secular families begin going to church when they leave home. In each case this is because Christianity disapproves of sex outside of marriage.
Weeden and Kurzban call those who enjoy casual sex and sexual variety, and who have little or no interest in marriage “Freewheelers.” Those who value marriage, and who have little or no interest in casual sex and sexual variety they call “Ring Bearers.”
Sara Diamond writes, “I take it as face value that people oppose abortion because they believe it is a form of murder.”
If anti abortion people really were pro life they would be in favor of universal health coverage, AKA “socialized medicine.” Universal health coverage would reduce infant mortality and the number of women who die in childbirth. Universal health coverage is not on the agenda of the Christian right.
A society that benefits Freewheelers jeopardizes Ring Bearers, and vice versa. Ring Bearers usually oppose abortion because they want teenage girls and women who have sex outside of marriage to be punished with unwanted pregnancies. A teenage girl or a woman who wants to wait until marriage before having sex has difficulty keeping a boy friend she wants to marry if he can easily find someone else who will have sex with him right now.
Weeden and Kurzban estimate that “39% of American adults are Freewheelers, 34% are Ring Bearers, and 27% are in the middle.” It is among the Ring Bearers that the Christian right finds supporters.
Weeden and Kurzban also hypothesize that the difference between Freewheelers and Ring Bearers is determined genetically. This is a hypothesis that can be tested when more is learned about the human genome.
Of the 1,000 13 to 17 year old girls surveyed by Seventeen magazine in 2005, 44 percent have or plan to take an abstinence pledge.
Beyond the Male Myth was published in 1977, and written by Anthony Pietropinto, M.D., and Jacqueline Simenauer. It is based on a survey of over 4,000 men from the ages of 18 to 65. It reports “One third of men today still want to marry a virgin.”
The Christian right may be seen as a reaction against the sexual revolution. The sexual revolution seems to have been victorious. Nevertheless, I see a future for the Ring Bearers. They usually have more children than Freewheelers. Their children inherit what I believe to be their genetic inclination toward monogamy. Their children also benefit from the fact that children raised to adulthood by both biological parents living together in matrimony tend to have many fewer problems in life.
Weeden and Kurzban write, “for those who had prior sex partners and who lived together before getting engaged, the ten-year divorce rate is over 40%; among those who were virgins until around the time they married, the ten-year divorce rate is tiny, less than 15%.”
My theory does not explain the hostility the Christian right has for homosexuals. A male homosexual is unlikely to seduce a virgin a male Ring Bearer wants to marry. Nevertheless, when explaining human behavior it unnecessary to explain everything to explain anything.
Sara Diamond writes, “The 1973 Supreme Court decision legalizing abortion was the single most galvanizing event in the history of the Christian right. Not by Politics Alone was published in 1998.
This book could have been an angry polemic. It is not. Rather it is a fair minded history of the Christian Right, one which emphasizes leaders and organizations. It could have been a better book. Sara Diamond writes, “this is not a book about why people as individuals, join and participate in social movements…I reject the idea of explaining political ideology and activism through some form of psychoanalysis.” She does write, “Religious broadcasting…has been the movement’s most important resource.”
“The Hastings Center Report, August 11, 1981, pp 14-17 says:
“the audience of Christian television…is over 60 percent female…Only 15 percent of the very committed television viewers have attended college and 41 percent of them report less than $10,000 [a year] income.”
Why does a movement that is predominately female and lower middle class promote male domination and support a political party whose main goal is to make the rich richer? I have speculative answers to that question, but first I will outline Sara Diamond’s history of the Christian right.
The Christian right began during the beginning of the Cold War and the McCarthy Era. Nevertheless, few people noticed or cared until 1979 when Jerry Falwell formed the Moral Majority. The name of the organization implied that most Americans agreed with Falwell on abortion, gay rights, prayer and Bible reading in the schools, and much else, but that the “moral majority” of Americans were thwarted by a powerful but small minority of “secular humanists.”
For a membership fee one could become a card carrying member of the Moral Majority. For a subscription fee one could subscribe to Falwell’s magazine The Fundamentalist. Every Sunday one could watch a television broadcast from Falwell’s Thomas Road Baptist Church in Lynchburg, Virginia.
In 1976 most Evangelicals voted for Jimmy Carter for president. Nevertheless, as president Carter declined to promote a Constitutional Amendment to outlaw abortion.
In August 1980 Presidential candidate Ronald Reagan spoke at a National Affairs Briefing in Dallas, Texas, that attracted fifteen thousand people. Reagan said, “I know you can’t endorse me. I want you to know that I endorse you.”
That was all Reagan needed to get the support of most Christian conservatives. It seemed not to bother them that as governor of California Reagan had signed a law legalizing abortion, and that he rarely attended church.
Reagan played the Christian right like a virtuoso. He knew that the Christian right spoke for a large constituency whose support the Republican Party would need in close elections. He also knew that many Republicans and likely Republican voters did not particularly like the Christian right. During the 1980’s public opinion surveys indicated that Jerry Falwell was one of the more unpopular public figures. Finally, Reagan knew that Christian conservatives would be satisfied with rhetorical support.
Rhetorical support was all the Christian right got from Reagan. During the eight years he was president abortion remained legal. Prayer and Bible reading in public schools remained illegal. The gay rights movement made slow but steady progress, despite – or perhaps because of – the AIDS epidemic. Of the three justices President Reagan nominated to the Supreme Court, two voted to preserve Roe vs Wade.
Reagan did not care. The issues that pumped adrenaline into his veins were fighting Communism and making the rich richer.
In 1989 Falwell disbanded the Moral Majority claiming, “Our goal has been achieved.” Actually, the Moral Majority had achieved nothing. Contributions to the Moral Majority were declining.
By the late 1980’s televangelists were becoming a laughing stock. Oral Roberts, whose contributions were also declining, warned his dwindling followers that God would call him home unless they contributed eight million dollars.
James Bakker confessed to an adulterous affair with his secretary, who might have been a virgin.
Jimmy Swaggart was exposed as being the frequent client of a prostitute.
Sara Diamond wrote, “The public was entertained by the sight of hypocrites falling off their pedestals…The image was one of ridiculous scoundrels.”
It was easy for its opponents to imagine that the Christian right had been laughed off of the stage. Nevertheless, Christian right activists moved away from national issues to local issues where they could be effective. These consisted of things like getting school libraries to remove certain books, requiring school sex education classes to teach abstinence only, and repealing local gay rights laws.
In her Conclusion Sara Diamond wrote, “As of 1998 there is no sign of a coming revival on the left…the Christian right [has] won a great measure of legitimacy.”
What motivates these people? To find an answer we should turn to The Hidden Agenda of the Political Mind, by Jason Weeden and Robert Kurzban.
Most of us have heard of promiscuous people raised in religious families who stop going to church when they leave home. Weeden and Kurzban point out that many monogamous people raised in secular families begin going to church when they leave home. In each case this is because Christianity disapproves of sex outside of marriage.
Weeden and Kurzban call those who enjoy casual sex and sexual variety, and who have little or no interest in marriage “Freewheelers.” Those who value marriage, and who have little or no interest in casual sex and sexual variety they call “Ring Bearers.”
Sara Diamond writes, “I take it as face value that people oppose abortion because they believe it is a form of murder.”
If anti abortion people really were pro life they would be in favor of universal health coverage, AKA “socialized medicine.” Universal health coverage would reduce infant mortality and the number of women who die in childbirth. Universal health coverage is not on the agenda of the Christian right.
A society that benefits Freewheelers jeopardizes Ring Bearers, and vice versa. Ring Bearers usually oppose abortion because they want teenage girls and women who have sex outside of marriage to be punished with unwanted pregnancies. A teenage girl or a woman who wants to wait until marriage before having sex has difficulty keeping a boy friend she wants to marry if he can easily find someone else who will have sex with him right now.
Weeden and Kurzban estimate that “39% of American adults are Freewheelers, 34% are Ring Bearers, and 27% are in the middle.” It is among the Ring Bearers that the Christian right finds supporters.
Weeden and Kurzban also hypothesize that the difference between Freewheelers and Ring Bearers is determined genetically. This is a hypothesis that can be tested when more is learned about the human genome.
Of the 1,000 13 to 17 year old girls surveyed by Seventeen magazine in 2005, 44 percent have or plan to take an abstinence pledge.
Beyond the Male Myth was published in 1977, and written by Anthony Pietropinto, M.D., and Jacqueline Simenauer. It is based on a survey of over 4,000 men from the ages of 18 to 65. It reports “One third of men today still want to marry a virgin.”
The Christian right may be seen as a reaction against the sexual revolution. The sexual revolution seems to have been victorious. Nevertheless, I see a future for the Ring Bearers. They usually have more children than Freewheelers. Their children inherit what I believe to be their genetic inclination toward monogamy. Their children also benefit from the fact that children raised to adulthood by both biological parents living together in matrimony tend to have many fewer problems in life.
Weeden and Kurzban write, “for those who had prior sex partners and who lived together before getting engaged, the ten-year divorce rate is over 40%; among those who were virgins until around the time they married, the ten-year divorce rate is tiny, less than 15%.”
My theory does not explain the hostility the Christian right has for homosexuals. A male homosexual is unlikely to seduce a virgin a male Ring Bearer wants to marry. Nevertheless, when explaining human behavior it unnecessary to explain everything to explain anything.
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