"Religious Right"

[Kyle]

I had to participate in a panel discussion/forum/debate tonight at the University I attend. It was lame, nothing to share about it. However, one of the areas I had to cover was public-to-private school vouchers. I think (and my organization believes) that they are a good idea, and provide more choice (freedom).

I was asking some liberal friends about what they thought the Dems. would argue against expanding the voucher program in Texas.

They seemed to come to the consensus that it was an underhanded way for the "religious right" to fund religious schools and indoctrinate more children, etc.

Regardless of my opinions of the religious right, or any of the above, this struck me as odd.

When I think of a private religious school, I have the impression that the majority of them are Catholic parochial schools. And when I think of the "religious right" I think of fundamentalist protestants. I just don't think of the religious right being made up of Catholics. So my question was, if most religious schools are Catholic, and Catholics, by and large, do not charactarize the "RR" then how does this make sense?

So I asked a Catholic friend and he said that Catholics pre-LBJ-era tended to be Democrats, but once abortion became a big issue, they tended to lean Republican, but when the death penalty became a big issue, they tended to lean Democrat, now they are split... 0.o

I know this thread is a lot of generalization, and I know all members of denomination X arent part of political party X, but on the whole, is the "Religious Right" a Catholic "thing"? Or are there more non-Catholic religious schools in the US than I realize and the folks I spoke to have come to a semi-logical conclusion? Or is the whole confusing me and maliciously attacking my baseless assumptions about poli-religious demographics just a Democratic straw-man argument against a good idea that goes agaist their core beliefs that the .gov does everything better and should be in complete monopolistic control of all of even the most basic needs in society?

[The Rabbi]

Boy that's a big subject.

I suspect the majority of religious schools are Catholic parochial schools.  I'll add parenthetically that they do a tremendous job with esp inner city kids of all religions.  But they are not the only ones and here in TN there are plenty of church-related schools that are protestant.  There are also  a fair number of Jewish day schools, mostly Orthodox, that would benefit from vouchers.
Virtually any analysis that assumes that educating children is the primary goal of schools will confirm that vouchers are a good idea and giving parents more choice yields better schools.  But any analysis that assumes that confirming societal norms is the primary purpose of education would be opposed to vouchers on church-state grounds.
The ed establishment opposes anything except handing more money to their experts.  How they oppose it varies but is largely immaterial.

[Perd Hapley]

I think the Religious Right is more defined by political/social views than by denominational affiliation.  The way I think of it, if you have the conservative political/social views that typify the RR, and you have traditional/conservative religious beliefs, that puts you in the RR.  That would include Muslims, Jews, Catholics, etc.  On the other hand, if you have those politcal/social beliefs but aren't especially religious or have liberal religious views, then you wouldn't be a part of the RR.  If you are a religious person with moderate/liberal politics, you would be on the Religious Left.

I think Wiki has a good take on it:

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.  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 [various social issues that we would just argue about].  Brackets mine.

If you think of the Religious Right as being some kind of organized conspiracy, or even a monolithic block of group-thinkers, that definition might not work for you.  But such a view is incorrect.  There are many conservative Christians who want no government money in their schools or "faith-based charities" at all.  

My definition also doesn't work if one is more swayed by the connotation of the term.  If you are an RR by my definition, but don't want to identify yourself with radical theocrats or ignorant "fundies," you'll limit the term to those people.  The very conservative Lutheran seminary here in town draws that distinction, and doesn't consider themselves RR, even though they are strongly anti-abortion and oppose homosexual marriage.

By the way, welcome back Malice, and I hope you can take it, this time.  

[Headless Thompson Gunner]

You're correct, the "religious right" usually isn't a Catholic thing.  Catholics tend to be more socially liberal and tend to vote Democrat.  This, of course, is a gross simplification.

Democrats oppose school vouchers because they are "anti-statist."  School vouchers take power away from the government and gives it to private individuals and private organizations.  That's the last thing a leftist wants to happen.

[richyoung]

Bingo.  A leftist wants to control YOU, via the government.  Anything that reduces such control, or could be used to resist such control - school vouchers, guns, talk radio internet blogs, has to be resisted or destroyed or "regulated" to promote "fairness".  Its also extremely hypodritical.  The same bunch erecting an imaginary wall between church and state have no problem cmpaigning in SOME churchs, while simultaneously condemning the "religious right", (as if, for some reason, they had no right to do the same).

BTW, I hardly think the term "ignorant fundies" is in keeping with an armed POLITE society.  I, for one, find it offensive.

[Perd Hapley]

So do I, but I used it in the context of someone who thinks in that way.  Specifically, a religious conservative who wants to seperate himself from people that he views as more extreme than himself.

[Art Eatman]

We live in a time where political labels vary with the perceptions or knowledge of the user.  That's why I prefer "statist" and "non-statist" to represent views of political philosophy.  People use "socialist", "fascist", "right-wing" and suchlike in incredibly ignorant ways.  I note that political philosophy isn't the same thing as politics...

Avoiding labels, the religious types I distrust are those who would use the government to pass laws restricting peoples' behaviors when those behaviors are deemed "evil".  It's the same issue of controlling people as we find in the statists.   There's always some bunch of (bleep, bleep, bleep) that just hate to see other folks having fun.

Disapproval in no way justifies making popular or commonplace actions illegal.  

Art

[wingnutx]

My Catholic grade school did a lousy job of indoctrinating me.

[Gewehr98]

Wingnutx,

I agree.  My Lutheran parochial school made me such a fervent zealot it's unnerving.  

[280plus]

Was it wrong to chug down the sacrificial wine at communion? Good stuff though.

There are a few small "Christian" based schools around here. Usually associated with a church. My two older ones went to one for a while. It was all I could stand. Have you ever been forced to pray to Jesus for guidance before your parent teacher conference and then to thank him afterwards? It was a new experience for me. One of my main concerns was the limited number of students my kids were exposed to. I wanted them to be mainstreamed, I wanted them to be exposed to kids from all walks of life and that was a BIG bone of contention between me and the ex. Unfortunately the courts wouldn't even touch it. Something about this church / state thing. All water under the bridge now...

[Perd Hapley]

  Have you ever been forced to pray to Jesus for guidance before your parent teacher conference and then to thank him afterwards?

Some of you guys are so unnerved by other peoples' religious practices that it just baffles me.  What was the deal?  You were forced to pray?  Out loud? 

Curious,
fistful

You're correct, the "religious right" usually isn't a Catholic thing.  Catholics tend to be more socially liberal and tend to vote Democrat.  This, of course, is a gross simplification.

Catholics have been predominantly Democratic in past eras, but I would be interested to know if that is still the case.  I don't know if Catholics would be more socially liberal these days, but I guess there are a few issues.  Capital punishment and immigration are two areas, but I don't know how most conservative catholics feel about those.

[280plus]

This was a meeting including myself, the pricipal, the guidance counselor and my kid's teacher. When we sat at the round table the principal started out saying we should say a prayer to start. What was I going to say, "No thanks but don't mind me, you all go ahead. " ? Not the best idea. Besides, I wasn't "unnerved" by it, just annoyed. I was annoyed with them to begin with. Their sweet little "Christian" children had been picking on my kid mercilessly and because he cried their response was to keep MY kid back a grade. I told them straight up, "If I could, I'd yank him out of here today."

Still ticks me off and we're talking ~ 15 years ago.

[Perd Hapley]

Avoiding labels, the religious types I distrust are those who would use the government to pass laws restricting peoples' behaviors when those behaviors are deemed "evil".  It's the same issue of controlling people as we find in the statists.   There's always some bunch of (bleep, bleep, bleep) that just hate to see other folks having fun.

Disapproval in no way justifies making popular or commonplace actions illegal. 

Art

I know what you mean, and I think I agree with you in principle.  I don't know if we have a semantic difference here, or a substantive one.  I disagree with gun control because it's evil.  All law is based on a moral idea of what is right and wrong for people to do.  I think the American way of dealing with it is to outlaw the specific evil of infringing the rights of others.  That is why I believe that murder and robbery should be illegal, while sodomy and fornication should be legal.

This was a meeting including myself, the pricipal, the guidance counselor and my kid's teacher. When we sat at the round table the principal started out saying we should say a prayer to start. What was I going to say, "No thanks but don't mind me, you all go ahead. " ? Not the best idea. Besides, I wasn't "unnerved" by it, just annoyed. I was annoyed with them to begin with. Their sweet little "Christian" children had been picking on my kid mercilessly and because he cried their response was to keep MY kid back a grade.

I was thinking you could have just let them pray, but I guess I'd have to be there to know what the situation was.  I guess most of the Christians I've been around have seemed pretty non-confrontational.  I've run into a few of these unpleasant Christians, but they seem like a small minority to me. 

Down in Texas, I walked out in the middle of a sermon when the preacher started screaming at his congregation about their sinfulness.  Didn't go back to that one.

[Matthew Carberry]

This was a meeting including myself, the pricipal, the guidance counselor and my kid's teacher. When we sat at the round table the principal started out saying we should say a prayer to start. What was I going to say, "No thanks but don't mind me, you all go ahead. " ? Not the best idea. Besides, I wasn't "unnerved" by it, just annoyed. I was annoyed with them to begin with. Their sweet little "Christian" children had been picking on my kid mercilessly and because he cried their response was to keep MY kid back a grade. I told them straight up, "If I could, I'd yank him out of here today."

Still ticks me off and we're talking ~ 15 years ago.

I think that would have been a perfectly appropriate thing to say, and they should have politely said something along the lines of "Okay" and you could have just sat quietly.  Now if you had real heartburn over them praying, I'd kinda question why you were using that school but that doesn't seem to be the case.

I get real annoyed with folks insisting on others participating in prayer.  Even when done in a group it is still a personal communication between an individual and their diety.

[280plus]

Unfirtunately, my wife had custody and called the shots. I did not know that when you gave up custody you gave up ALL rights. I couldn't even see their report cards OR attendance records without her permission. Even though there was evidence that they hadn't been making it to school regularly. I had no say. I had gone in there just to see if I could persuade them to advance him. I learned a whole lot from that divorce.

[Guest]

With a school-vouchering system it is likely that some more secular private schools would pop up to take a piece of the pie. Introducing this system would put these schools into a position of competing for students based ont he academic quality of their education, this is a good thing for kids. On the other hand, its also posible that some really wacky parents will be able to set up schools with the sole intention of indoctrinating their kids into their way of life.

For example, we dont currently have an actual neo-nazi elementary school, largely because the people who would enjoy such a thing can not afford to support one. With a vouchering system such a school could exist with state funding in the form of vouchers. I dont know how important that is, but it rubs me the wrong way that my tax dollars could be spent to such an end. The current system of private schools ensures that they have to make some kind of sense to people because they are spending their own money on them.

The obvious solution to this is to, of course, set up some rules about what schools can accept a voucher, but really, that is the part that worries me the most. The government will almost certaionly exert even more pressure onto schools under a vouchering system. Meaning, that if a school is allowed to accept vouchers they would have to conform to a set of federal guidelinges, making the private schools very similar to public schools and defeating the whole purpose of having them in the first place. Logically a school would be able to simply deny vouchers, but in a system where vouchers are the norm it might become difficult for a school to survive without them. Furthermore, when people start paying private school tuition with someone elses money, they stop paying as much attention to how that school operates. If a school suddenly has 10 times the applicants than they have seats, it becomes less important for them to actually please their current parents.

Really, i see this whole vouchering idea as a solution in search for a problem. The problem is that public schools kinda such. Well, maybe we should fix them, except that a big part of the problem with public schools is the very nature of them being public. Private schools exist as an alternative for people who want their children exposed to better education and their own values. Vouchering will do nothing to fix public schools, in fact it can quite possibly make them worse, and I dont think it will improve the quality of private schools eaither.

[Perd Hapley]

You already do, in the form of public education.


I submit the following is the wierdest of wierd things ever posted on APS.

For example, we dont currently have an actual neo-nazi elementary school

Way to go!

[280plus]

For example, we dont currently have an actual neo-nazi elementary school

And we sure could use a couple...

J/K

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