Church is out: The demise of the religious right

By Mustang Bobby

One result of the election that goes beyond just counting the votes:

Christian conservatives, for more than two decades a pivotal force in American politics, are grappling with Election Day results that repudiated their influence and suggested that the cultural tide — especially on gay issues — has shifted against them.

[...]

"Millions of American evangelicals are absolutely shocked by not just the presidential election, but by the entire avalanche of results that came in," R. Albert Mohler Jr., president of the Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, in Louisville, Ky., said in an interview. "It's not that our message — we think abortion is wrong, we think same-sex marriage is wrong — didn't get out. It did get out.

"It's that the entire moral landscape has changed," he said. "An increasingly secularized America understands our positions, and has rejected them."

Yes, and it's about time, too.

I don't have a problem with religion and religious folk having a point of view about morals. I don't even object to them having lobbyists in Washington or state capitals to make their points to people in power. What I do not like is having religion turned into political power and Biblical tenets written into law, especially when they're used to oppress one particular group of citizens.

So if America is rejecting the "moral landscape" as it has been constructed by those that would break down the barrier between church and state, turn back the clock on women, and deny the basic rights of citizenship to the gay community, that's a good thing.

(Cross-posted at Bark Bark Woof Woof.)