Religious right

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The term Religious Right is a broad label applied by both scholars and critics to a number of political and religious movements and groups that primarily are active around conservative and right wing social issues. The term is used most often by the liberal left and generally carries a negative connotation; it is rarely if ever, used by the Religious Right to describe themselves.

Sometimes the term Religious Right is used interchangeably with the term Christian right, although some argue for a distinction. The Christian Right in the United States, Canada and the United Kingdom, for example, has made efforts to reach out to Orthodox Jews and Muslim social conservatives, especially in building coalitions against abortion and same-sex marriage.

Increasingly, the Christian Right and Jewish Right, especially in North America, are uniting over the issue of Israeli statehood. To quote influential American Evangelical Christian Jerry Falwell, “I have always said that America’s Bible Belt is Israel’s safety belt.” As of January 11, 2006, the Israeli tourism ministry has refused to do business with fellow Religious Right leader, Pat Robertson over comments made about then-prime minister Ariel Sharon on his television show the 700 Club. Despite this, Evangelical tourism remains an important aspect of the Israeli economy, and North American Right-Wing Christian groups continue to provide strong support for Israeli militarism.

At the United Nations level, conservative interfaith NGOs co-operate over issues of gender, reproductive and sexual health, lesbian and gay rights, family and bioethical policies. The World Congress of Families is one particularly important interfaith forum for that purpose. In the case of Muslim social conservatives, the World Congress of Families may be difficult to sustain as a forum for conservative Christian/Islamic co-belligerency, given increasing US-Iranian international tensions, the 2003 Iraq War and Israel-Palestine conflict, which means that foreign policy overshadows any shared social conservatism that might attract conservative interfaith co-operation.


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[edit] New Zealand

In New Zealand, there was a smaller conservative Muslim co-belligerency against the Prostitution Reform Act 2003, although many New Zealand fundamentalist Protestants are Christian Zionists, and oppose religious freedom for Muslims, thus negating any initial moves since then.

[edit] See also

Contrast: Christian left

[edit] External links

[edit] References

  • Armstrong, Karen (2001). The Battle for God: A History of Fundamentalism. New York: Ballantine Books. ISBN 0-345-39169-1
  • Brasher, Brenda E. (2001). The Encyclopedia of Fundamentalism. New York: Routledge. ISBN 0-415-92244-5
  • Diamond, Sara. 1995. Roads to Dominion: Right-Wing Movements and Political Power in the United States. New York: Guilford.
  • Horowitz, Craig. September 29, 2003. Israel's Christian Soldiers. New York: New York Magazine.
  • Marsden; George M. (1980). Fundamentalism and American Culture: The Shaping of Twentieth Century Evangelicalism, 1870-1925 Oxford University Press, ([1])
  • Marty, Martin E. and R. Scott Appleby (eds.). The Fundamentalism Project. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
  • Martin, William. (1996). With God on Our Side: The Rise of the Religious Right in America, New York: Broadway Books.
  • Ribuffo, Leo P. (1983). The Old Christian Right: The Protestant Far Right from the Great Depression to the Cold War. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.
  • Shapiro, Ben. Brainwashed: How Universities Indoctrinate America's Youth (ISBN 0-7852-6148-6), 2004.
  • Shapiro, Ben. Porn Generation: How Social Liberalism Is Corrupting Our Future (ISBN 0-89526-016-6), Regnery, 2005.
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