Religion -- The Conclusion to a Contradictory and Conflicted Series

i'm not a sociologist or anthropologist, so my statements are merely observations and speculations that begin and end with me.

most people place the rightward shift of southern politics at the center of the civil rights era. while, the defection of southern democrats to the republican party in the wake of civil rights legislation is well documented, i disagree that it constitutes a 'rightward' shift. it didn't represent a sea change in political views. these politicians and their constituents were racists all along. their defection to the republican party institutionalized the conflict over civil rights legislation along party lines.

the rightward shift happened much later and for different reasons.

i remember distinctly the day after reagan was elected in 1980. i went to school the day after the election, full of excitement because i wanted to show off the silver dollar i got from the tooth fairy the night before. there must have been some very long faces around the breakfast table in homes throughout my community that morning. when i got to my head start class, all the kids were parroting their parents' negative reactions to reagan's victory.

by 1989, when my family moved to TN, these very same parents had developed a love affair with the republican party. the primary source of good jobs in the community, the coal mining industry, was in a shambles. it some ways, the recession of the early 80s really never left coal-mining country. the 80s saw a slow and inevitable decline in the industry.

i remember slump-shouldered, defeated men unable to adequately provide a good standard of living for their families. the church was a source of solidarity, support, and meaning. some people began to subscribe to the view that their suffering was a punishment from god for american culture's immoral ways. so, they began voting on social issues like abortion and homosexuality.

they were philosophical about the inability of either party to affect the economic stagnation that afflicted the whole community. so, they chose to vote on social issues because these were matters where they felt they had some influence. prior to this time, they could separate religion and politics. not because they were formerly liberal on matters like abortion and homosexuality.

they voted for the party that supported unions because the unions ensured good wages and adequate compensation for the inevitable injuries that coal miners suffered. entire swatches of the south were economically depressed throughout the 80s. the one thing the democrats had going for them prior to that was their staunch support of unionized labor. their support of affirmative action, abortion, and civil rights for gays, was something they overlooked when voting for democrats.

as unions steadily declined in power and thousands of people across the south and other rural communities entered into a protracted economic decline, there were jobless men with children to feed who had nothing to do but sit at home and watch tv or listen to the radio, and go to church. televangelism and the rise of right wing radio coincided perfectly with these events, but i'm not certain which was the cause and which was the effect. the democrats had nothing to offer, and while the republicans had nothing economically to offer, they did hold out the promise of a more moral society.

i personally witnessed this phenomenon in my own father. after becoming disabled in his second of two serious work-related accidents, he suffered what people euphemistically called a 'nervous breakdown.' his loss of his role as the primary breadwinner in our family was devastating, and he was never the same afterwards. he developed an obsessive interest in political radio and television.

by the time he had transformed into a staunch republican voter, he was a great fan of rush limbaugh and was given to parroting the rush party line -- black welfare recipients are lazy, but white welfare recipients are victims due to unqualified black people being hired over more qualified white recipients. the democrats were pandering to a lazy, (read immoral), degenerate constituency that favored undeserving minorities (gays included) over good, hard-working americans.

he knew that his situation was due to forces outside of his control, but i don't know many people who can sanguinely accept personal misfortune as something outside their sphere of influence. i think he found some comfort in believing that the democrats and their policies were solely responsible for fomenting the conditions for a growing white underclass.

my father is not a religious man, so he isn't exactly the best example of how the relationship between religion and politics developed over the last 20 years. however, he does strongly respect religion as source of good things, and believes in the stereotype of liberals as hostile to religion. given that religion is an important social institution for poor southern whites, reactionaries like limbaugh, who could hardly be called devout, were able to frame the political divide in religious terms, both overtly and implicitly. the language of 'personal responsibility' and 'character' that so permeates the right wing dialogue is borrowed directly from the pulpit. this language used to apply to other things -- being a good spouse and parent was about being responsible enough to provide them with the necessities. when that became increasingly difficult, some people transferred this language from the personal sphere to the political.

i don't think it's any secret that i've got a chip on my shoulder with regard to organized religion. there is some truth to the stereotype that liberals are hostile to religion. there's also some basis for that hostility -- right wing organized religion is very hostile to liberal ideals of equality for women, particularly in the arena of reproductive rights. i won't even go into the bigotry against gays.

nevertheless, i think that liberals do need to re-examine their attitudes towards religion. the latent hostility towards religion is alienating people who are otherwise in agreement with many of the things we care about. religious people are not de facto homophobic or sexist. religion is a source of comfort and meaning for a lot of people, and it’s insulting to ascribe a lack of intelligence to people who make religion an important part of their lives.

so, we need to be careful to make a distinction between what we don't like about organized religion as a political force and its role as a social institution. america is a religious country. religious people donate a lot of money to charity. some of them, naively i think, believe that charity alone is enough and oppose governmental programs designed to do the same. instead of calling these people 'stupid' for not seeing right away the greater wisdom of the great liberal cause, it's our responsibility to make good, persuasive arguments in favor of government programs that help the poor.

religious people are as varied and complex as anyone. we need to welcome the liberals among them into the fold. they are more likely to influence the opinions of the reactionaries among them than the atheist contingent among liberals. spitting on people and their beliefs has never been a good means to persuade them to your point of view. the reactionary wing of the republican party was very clever in the way it courted poor, religious white people. its rhetoric is carefully designed to single out specific classes of the disadvantaged for scorn. it worked beautifully.