Measuring the strength of the Religious Right

Christian Century, August 25, 1999 by Andrew M. Greeley, Michael Hout

The emergence of an activist, conservative religious political movement is one of the major political and cultural stories of the past two decades. Angry about the decline of public and private morality, religious conservatives have became politically militant and have set out to undo the cultural "revolutions" of the 1960s. As one side of the "cultural wars," the Religious Right aims to enforce "family values" and reverse the tide of "secular humanism." Well organized and sophisticated in the techniques of political mobilization, these militants spearheaded the Republican triumph in the 1994 congressional elections and remain a powerful force in American politics--indeed, they form a base of the Republican Party.

Or so the story goes. It's a compelling story, and a convenient paradigm around which to organize reporting. But those who study survey results have some doubts. David Moore argued in 1995 that when polled on the subject most respondents couldn't identify the "Religious Right" as a political movement. Twenty-nine percent thought it referred to freedom of religion and 26 percent said they didn't know what the term meant.

Furthermore, other polls do not show a surge in attitudes associated with the Religious Right. Attitudes toward abortion, for example, have not changed much since the National Opinion Research Center first asked a series of questions in the 1972 General Social Survey. Meanwhile, tolerance of homosexuals has increased dramatically in the 1990s, and so has tolerance of premarital sex. How could Americans become more liberal on these controversial topics at the same time that the Religious Right was becoming a dominant force in American political life?

Sociologists who have investigated the alleged polarization of American culture have found little evidence for it. Christian Smith and colleagues, writing in Culture Wars in American Politics (1997), edited by Rhys Williams, summarized their findings:

   Francis FitzGerald described Jerry Falwell's Moral Majority as "a
   disciplined, charging army." That image lives on today, as conventional
   wisdom frames and frets about the Pat Robertsons, Ralph Reeds, Pat
   Buchanans, Randall Terrys and James Dobsons of the world. We would like to
   suggest, however, that when you stop listening to these noisy,
   entrepreneurial elites for a moment, and begin listening to the great mass
   of ordinary Americans, particularly to those within the institution of
   American Protestantism, you don't hear the clamor of a disciplined charging
   army. You hear the struggles and worries of regular folks trying to get
   along in a world that seems to them increasingly dangerous and
   dysfunctional. You hear people worried about their kids, about the economy,
   about their neighborhoods. You hear people often trying to follow God as
   best they know how. To most of the folks with these concerns, the brouhaha
   over culture wars is fairly distant and trivial.

Several questions might be asked in a probe of whether there is an evangelical base in the Republican Party:

1) What proportion of Americans subscribe to the core religious and social (mostly sexual-ethical) agenda of the Religious Right? How large is this potential Republican "base"?

2) How much has that proportion increased in the U.S. in recent years?

3) Has the Religious Right been more politically mobilized in recent years--is it more likely to vote?

4) Has the activity of the Religious Right affected voting patterns in national election?

Moore reported that the Religious Right seemed to represent an intersection of political affiliation (Republican), sexual attitudes and religious conservatism. Accepting this assumption, we analyzed the potential Republican bases. Figure 1 displays four possible Republican political bases. The first bar represents all those who identify as Republicans in NORC's General Social Survey over a four-year period and who describe themselves as politically "conservative."

[Figure 1 ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Little more than half of those who identify themselves as Republican also describe themselves as "conservative." The second and third bars represent "social" conservatives, which in current political discourse has come mostly to mean sexual conservatives. The second bar represents those Republicans who believe that abortion on demand ("for any reason at all") is wrong, that homosexuality is always wrong, and that premarital sex is always wrong. Twenty-seven percent of Republican respondents fall into this category (as do 21 percent of all Americans). The third bar depicts a stricter sexual conservatism--it includes those who reject abortion even in cases of rape. Fifteen percent of Republicans fall into this category as do 10 percent of all Americans. The fourth bar indicates the number who believe in the literal "word for word" truth of the Bible. Only nine percent of Republicans fall into this category, which we have termed the Religious Right.

The Christian right "base" of the Republican Party is thus quite small. And only about 6 percent of all Americans believe in the literal interpretation of the scriptures and at the same time are against abortion in all cases (including rape and incest) and believe premarital sex and homosexuality are always wrong. This may seem like something less than Frances FitzGerald's "disciplined, charging army" or the vast movement of Christians alleged to be remaking the American political landscape. Nor may it seem like the major political base of the Republican Party.