Of Religion and Politics

The recent rise of the religious right in American politics should be of great concern for all rational, peace loving people across the globe. Though its not the first time religious issue was exploited to ensure a Repucblican victory in Presidential elections, it certainly woould not stop the GOP from the tried and successful tactic.

Religion was first exploited by the Republican nominee for President, Richard Nixon in the 1968 elections. The popular sentiments among the Southerners back then was their traditional party, the Democratic Party, sold them out on the issue of civil rights. By approving legislative agendas in repealing segregationist laws, the then President Lyndon B. Johnson created a perfect storm between white America and people of colored. For awhile, the Republicans did not have the proper response to the perceived threat to the white America - that is until Nixon ran for the office of the President of the United States for the second time in eight years.

Since Nixon won his first election in 1968, the Republicans won the race for White House three out of nine elections, prior to the 2008 elections.

President Jimmy Carter won the 1976 elections riding the wave of resentment voters felt towards the Republicans over the Watergate scandal. President Nixon was forced to resign when two investigative journalists ran a story that revealed the involvement of the White House in a burglary at the Democratic Party's headquarters, located at the Watergate Hotel.

Carter went on to lose the White House to Ronald Reagan in the 1980 elections, who exploited the siege of the American Embassy at Tehran, the gay and women's rights movement (both perceived as a threat to the religious right in the wake of the civil rights victory for minorities) and Carter's unpopular remedy for the tanking US economy, which was increasing the interest rate by the Federal Reserve, later proved as the single most important factor in stabilizing the economy.

Reagan, basking in the religious right's fervent rhetoric over the issue of homosexuality and women's rights in the 1970s, went on to cut taxes, reduce government spending and challenge the Soviet Union to tear down the Wall at Berlin. His optimistic leadership style did not waver even under mounting criticism for the handling the Iran Contra issue and the shooting down of a Korean airliner over Soviet airspace, among other things. Yet he was remembered as the man responsible for bringing down the 'Evil Empire' as he would call the Soviet Union, in quantifying the fight against the communist regime as evil versus the forces of good.

The election of the first Bush, George Herbert Walker Bush to the office was seen as a continuation of Reagan's agenda. Bush Sr. led an international force to repel Saddam Hussein's army from Kuwait. Yet, the in the election of 1992, the economy would take a backseat to religious fervor.

Bill Clinton, who won the election on the agenda to reform our economy went on the raise taxes to the top earners in the country, gave women the rights to carry out abortion legally, promoted gun control legislation and concentrate on reducing emissions in the fight against global warming.

Then came the infamous 2000 Presidential elections. The might of the religious right, waned during the 1990s prosperous Clinton years, came back in full force to elect George Walker Bush, the son of Bush Sr., to the office. Bush Junior instituted the disastrous tax cuts, gave preference, gun lobbyists, oil corporations and defense contractors preference in his legislative agenda for two consecutive terms. The rest as they say, is history.

The 2008 Presidential Elections campaign set some historic precedents, namely a woman, a Latino, and another African American running for the nomination of the Democratic Party. The unusually long race culminated in an African American gaining a major party's nomination for the Presidency in for the first time in American history. The Republicans created history too, by appointing its first female nominee for the vice-presidency.

The 2008 campaign saw some of the worst in American politics, with the religious right's rhetoric would escalate, soliciting violent tendencies among the public divided over the role of religion and race in American politics.

The challenge now for the new President, is to reassert the constitutional requirements that the church should be separated from the machinations of the state.