The Religious Right & The Decline In America's Standing Abroad

The religious right's influence on American foreign and domestic policy is a cause of America's worsening reputation abroad and a threat to America's security.

A recent commentary on Salon.com by Glenn Greenwald strikingly summarizes the profound decline in the the United States' reputation among the nations of the world. The chart that he cites from a Pew Global Attitudes Project report says it all. (Click on the chart to enlarge it.)

He writes that

The widespread respect America commanded and the admiration for our values was, prior to George W. Bush, a vital ingredient of our national security and ability to protect our interests. (Emphasis mine.)

Greenwald is correct on both points: that our standing has dropped abroad since George W. Bush's election and that the decline itself represents a compromise of our national security.

Greenwald rightly identifies that a "good versus evil" mentality cripples the Bush administration, and that it is a mentality with religious and political origins.

Among the sources of the Bush administration's mentality--among the sources for many of the administration's excesses--there is a religio-political movement to which a line can be clearly traced: the religious right.

With the religious right's influence on the Republican Party--beginning in the 1970's, growing over a course of years, and still strong today--anti-intellectualism, provincialism, biblical and even messianic rhetoric, dualistic ("good versus evil") moralism, and even American exceptionalism all grew stronger within the GOP, and with the election of George W. Bush, became to much of the rest of the globe all but synonymous with American ideals. In not only the rhetoric of many Republicans, but in their policies, especially those of the Republicans of the Bush administration, there have been for several years and continue to be words and deeds enough that reflect the agenda of the religious right and that alienate a wide range of nations and cultures.

The Bush administration's foreign policy has been marked by not just arrogance and mismanagement, but specifically by a pro-Israel-right-or-wrong stance, numerous rejections of international organizations and agreements, attacks against science, including medical science (as demonstrated by the administration's resistance to safe-sex education and global distain for women's health issues), and ecology. All of these things directly reflect the emphases and obsessions of the religious right since the late 1970's and early 1980's--emphases and obsessions usually justified by specific interpretations of biblical passages about "End Times"--including notions such as (to name just one of them) the Antichrist using multi-national organizations, like the United Nations or even a united Europe, to dominate a world eager and ready (thanks to secularism, of course).

On the domestic front, the rolling back of women's reproductive rights, the resurgence of advocacy for forms of Creationism to be taught in schools, the attempts to halt or rollback civil rights for gay Americans, and outpouring of federal funds to faith-based organizations and "services," also reflect obsessions of the religious right--not just those mentioned above, but also obsessions with the myth of the republic's Founding Fathers being effectively evangelical Christians desiring an officially Christian state, perhaps even a basically theocratic one.

I encourage readers to learn more about the religious right through website like Talk2Action, Theocracy Watch, Religious Right Watch, and DefCon.

The election of George W. Bush is arguably a milestone in the religious right's efforts. A milestone, but it really ought to be a millstone. Americans dedicated to reason, truth-telling, and the liberal ideals of our republic's founders should not let the religious right off lightly when it comes to the George W. Bush legacy, when it comes to the religious right's worldview as being a wellspring of much of what may make the Bush legacy a "tragic" one