Church attendance in the US has fallen rapidly over the last decade, to the point where just 25% of Americans are believed to go to church weekly.
This has left the Republican Religious Right in a quandary. It needs to appeal to an increasingly secular population but at the same time to keep its evangelical base on board.
The self-proclaimed ‘Moral Majority’ pushed a legislative reform programme during the Reagan, Clinton and Bush administrations.
But the social mainstream is shifting, with the majority moving away from moral absolutism.
According to a Christian research group, some 25% of adult Americans are weekly churchgoers. This still means that there are about 70 million people attending Catholic, Evangelical or Mormon services.
And they still represent the single largest voting bloc in US politics.
Of the rapidly evolving social changes, the clearest example is America’s increasing acceptance of gay marriage. Only 20 years ago, the majority in the US said that being gay was a ‘sin’.
The new battle tactics have had to shift away from trying to legislate against ‘sin’ and taking up instead the battle cry of religious freedom as guaranteed by the First Amendment. The appeal to Constitutional freedoms could prove attractive to more than just those on the moral right of the political spectrum.
