Before Ronald Reagan was inaugurated in 1981, and introduced the phrase, "God bless America," as his standard speech closing, it had only been used once by a president in a major address. That president was Richard Nixon and he used it during an Oval Office speech on April 30, 1973, in an attempt to contain the Watergate scandal. Reagan's use of the religious rhetoric was a dramatic change in presidential addresses. According to
David Domke and Kevin Coe, writing for Time Magazine in 2008:
From the inauguration of Franklin Roosevelt in 1933 — which most observers view as the beginning of the modern presidency — to the end of Carter's term in January 1981, Presidents gave 229 major addresses. Nixon's use of "God bless America" was the only time the phrase passed a President's lips. In contrast, from Reagan's inauguration through the six-year mark of the current Bush Administration, Presidents gave 129 major speeches, yet they said "God bless America" (or the United States) 49 times. It's a pattern we unearthed in our book The God Strategy: How Religion Became a Political Weapon in America.
Strange to think that anyone under 33years old was not even alive during a time in which our presidents did not routinely call upon a religious deity for blessings. So perhaps it is not surprising that most Americans feel that religion's influence is waning in spite of all evidence to the contrary.
According to the latest Pew Research Religion & Public Life Project polling, we just don't have enough religion in our lives. Or our politics. We especially don't have enough to suit the white Protestants. And it is getting worse. Eighty percent of white evangelicals and 79 percent of white mainline Protestants feel that religion is no longer making its presence felt in America like it used to in the good old days when the Republicans were in charge.
And they think that is a bad thing.
I think they may be watching too much Fox News.
Feeling sorry for the Republican Religious Fundamentalists who are worried about society's ability to manage in the face of waning enthusiasm for their brand of religion, I looked for stories, for examples, that would help them keep the faith, and realize that they still have some influence on the day-to-day lives of American citizens. Those stories are below the fold.
The first thing I found to bring joy to their hearts is the tale of how these true believers in Utah can now continue to use child labor in their pecan fields. Because of Hobby Lobby's enduring legacy of freedom.
"It is not for the Court to 'inquir[e] into the theological merit of the belief in question'," Sam wrote, citing Hobby Lobby. "The Court's 'only task is to determine whether the claimant's belief is sincere, and if so, whether the government has applied substantial pressure on the claimant to violate that belief.'"
Yep, these Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints members can now
violate laws against child labor with no fear of a federal subpoena requiring the names of church "leaders who may or may not have sent children to harvest pecans."
After all, didn't Jesus say, suffer the little children to come onto me and pick pecans? And then, if they are girl children, perhaps we can find husbands for them.
There is more good news for Fundamentalists about contraception and the continuing battle to force women to produce babies so someone can pick those pecans.
The Obama administration has developed new rules that would allow employers like Hobby Lobby to avoid paying for contraception coverage by making the insurers pay for it. To help those employers who feel that notifying the insurers of their intent to opt out is too onerous a burden, the government has offered to make that notification for them. But, as Joan McCarter wrote, that is not good enough for some employers, such as Ave Maria University which has filed a motion to block the change:
[...]The filing said that even though it no longer has to inform its insurer or third party administrator of its intentions, it remains opposed to notifying the administration of its desire to opt out because that would trigger a process by which the government requires insurers to pay for the contraception coverage, should the employee desire it.
"Ave Maria believes that any action 'specifically intended to prevent procreation'—including contraception and sterilization—is morally wrong," the Sept. 12 filing said. "Simply routing the form through HHS is a distinction without a difference. Indeed, HHS concedes that the augmented rule simply provides an 'alternative' that has the exact 'same' effect as before."
I bolded the key passage for the true believers who might have gotten confused by all the legalese. This battle was never about providing insurance for contraception or who would pay for it. It was always about denying women the opportunity to obtain it.
After all, if they won't produce those pecan pickers, who will?
Here is more handiwork showing that religious influence on our society is not dead yet:
This past May, Joni Mars’ six-year-old daughter was assaulted on the school bus after telling another student that she didn’t believe in God. The other child started by spitting on and pinching her daughter. “The other little kids on the bus were egging him on and telling him to hit her and kick her. So he did,” Mars told me.
Joni’s daughter came home, covered in bruises and crying. When her husband approached the other child’s family, they promised to take care of it, but the child assaulted her daughter again three days later on the playground. “That was the final straw,” she said. Earlier this month, the Mars family moved from Oklahoma City to upstate New York, hoping to live somewhere more progressive.
Isn't that sweet how anxious those youngsters are to convert nonbelievers? And surely, there is no better way to convince a 6-year old of the existence of a god than by beating her up.
More evidence of God, or something:
A New Mexico abortion clinic partially aimed at serving Texas women has not yet opened more than a week after what was supposed to be its first day, a delay that opponents are crediting to God.
[...]
“We have to believe that God is answering some prayers,” said Sullenger [a senior policy advisor at Operation Rescue]
Yeah, because a delay in the paperwork is just so pedestrian.
And apparently the only thing that would prove the lack of religious influence in our nation more than a woman controlling her own body would be the freedom of people to love whomever they love. So here is more reassurance that we have not completely lost our way:
In Philadelphia, a group of young people, leaving a restaurant where they had dined together, encountered a gay couple who were making their way home after dinner. Quickly confirming that the men were gay, the gang of young people beat the crap out of them, putting one in the hospital.
Apparently they couldn't find a pile of stones, so had to make do with fists.
On their way to beat the gay.
And
Bill in Portland Maine brings this bit of glad tidings:
You can still be fired for being gay in 29 states and for being transgender in 34.
So you see, there are still plenty of signs of the influence of religion on our society. Nor is it likely to wane soon, not when there are so many willing to help spread the good word, using fists, stones, teeth, or whatever else is handy.
And there is always the cavalry to call upon when things get a little tight, financially. Right now they are meeting in Orlando, Florida, deciding where their billion dollars will be spent this year.
The Gathering promotes “family values” agenda: opposition to gay rights and reproductive rights, for example, and also a global vision that involves the eventual eradication of all competing belief systems that might compete with The Gathering’s hard-right version of Christianity. Last year, for example, The Gathering 2013 brought together key funders, litigants, and plaintiffs of the Hobby Lobby case, including three generations of the Green family.
The Gathering was conceived in 1985 by a small band of friends at the Arlington, Virginia, retreat center known as The Cedars, which is run by the evangelical network that hosts the annual National Prayer Breakfast. This stealthy network is known as The Family or The Fellowship. Jeff Sharlet’s book The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power described it in great detail.
The evangelical right financial dynasties and foundations that meet each year at The Gathering dispense upwards of $1 billion a year in grants. But even that is overshadowed by the bigger sums that The Family and The Gathering have managed to route from the federal and state government to fund their movement via the Faith-Based Initiative program, USAID, PEPFAR and other multibillion-dollar programs.
For those hard-right Christians who cannot afford the Gathering's $1,750-per-person fee, there is the
Values Voters Summit which will be occurring in Washington, D.C., this weekend.
According to Frederick Clarkson, speakers will include Ted Cruz, Mike Huckabee, and Rand Paul. Gee, you think any of the funding for the Values Voters Summit is being provided by the Family & Friends?
Their analysis is as simple as their goals are ambitious. United in Purpose claims that too few Christians of the right sort are registered, participating in public life, and sufficiently grounded in a theocratic “Biblical worldview.”
Their effort to turn this around is called Project 75. The stated mission is to “get pastors across the America to get 75% of their congregation educated in the Biblical worldview and voting accordingly on Election Day. Of the 90 million Christians in the U.S., only 39 million of them vote in any given election or are even registered to vote. We believe that if Christian voters will make their voices heard on Election Day, we can bring about positive change in America.”
And finally, because I actually am concerned with the waning influence of religion on our society, and because I remember so many lessons from childhood Bible studies, and because it is a Sunday, I am including two more quotations.
Pope Francis, June 5, 2013:
Men and women are sacrificed to the idols of profit and consumption: it is the 'culture of waste.' If a computer breaks it is a tragedy, but poverty, the needs and dramas of so many people end up being considered normal. ... When the stock market drops 10 points in some cities, it constitutes a tragedy. Someone who dies is not news, but lowering income by 10 points is a tragedy! In this way people are thrown aside as if they were trash.
Proverbs 31:8-9:
Open your mouth for the mute, for the rights of all who are destitute.
Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy.