Religious Right Watch

President Palin: the religious right's choice of a generation; McCain's unenthusiastic choice.

You will probably have heard that John McCain picked Sarah Palin as his running mate because she is a woman. But she is also a darling of the religious right, and that is probably just as much--if not more so--the reason McCain picked her. The religious right is a significant portion of the current Republican Party's base, and has been for the last 30+ years. McCain decided that the religious right is alive and well enough that he needed to attempt to energize it, to improve its enthusiasm for the McCain candidacy, for the religious right has never liked McCain since his refreshingly accurate "agents of intolerance" speech in February of 2000.

McCain picks Palin and "the religious right is ecstatic," says Talk To Action's Frederick Clarkson.

And Chip Berlet notes:

By picking Palin, McCain gains even more Christian Right support than by picking Romney or Huckabee with their heavy political baggage. This sets up McCain for a triumphant appearance at the 2008 Values Voters conference in Washington, DC--a major get out the vote event for mobilizing the Christian Right base to reach out to other evangelicals in their home communities.

Conservative evangelical Mike Huckabee was not an option for McCain's running mate because he didn't want the job. Mitt Romney was not an option because, though now a social conservative, he is also a Mormon. Could it be that John McCain is actually not all that enthusiastic about Sarah Palin, but felt that he had no other real options?

Sen. McCain picks Creationist as running mate

Senator John McCain has selected Alaska Governor Sarah Palin as his running mate. Gov. Palin supports the teaching of creationism in schools.

New Stealth Tactic to Smuggle In Creationism

The Christian Right's Got a New Stealth Tactic to Smuggle Creationism into Science Class: "supplemental textbooks."

Hatred's a many-striped thing

Over at Huffington Post, Talk To Action's Chip Berlet puts the Obama assassination plot into some additional context.

"Football teams walk fine line of religion in schools"

Hat-tip to Dispatches from the Culture War: SCNow.com reports on "Football teams walk fine line of religion in schools."

As Dispatches notes: "If you want a spot on the team, you go to football camp. And if your coach works at the [Fellowship of Christian Athletes] football camp, you go to that football camp. But when you're there, the religion is also mandatory. That's a serious problem."

What's a "Barna Evangelical?"

There are differences between Christian evangelicals, conservative evangelicals, and "born-again" Christians, even though the mainstream media in the US often use the terms interchangeably.

One new distinction between types of evangelical Christians in the US may be whether or not an evangelical is a "Barna Evangelicals." The Barna Group is a Christian organization "offering statistics, resources, seminars and custom research on current cultural and spiritual trends."

"What is a Barna Evangelical?" The dKos user rdbaker43 looks into the answer here. The short answer: Barna Evangelicals are those defined as evangelicals by Barna based on the respondents' answers to "nine belief questions." Barna Evangelicals are a subset of American evangelicals, perhaps 18,000,000 adult Americans out of the 72,000,000 adult Americans who self-identify as evangelical.

Whether or not you're a person of faith (rdbaker43 is not), rdbaker43's diary is worth at least a perusal since the term "Barna Evangelical" may very well become more common, at least among those who follow trends of faith and politics in the U.S. as many Religious Right Watch readers do.

(Note: At the time the of writing this post, Barna's homepage was showing a "Coming Soon - Please check back soon" message.)

Thank J&J Pacific

Given the strength of the Christian rightwing in Australia, it is appropriate to e-mail Johnson & Johnson Pacific* and thank them for recognizing the partner of gold medalist swimmer Matthew Mitcham as family, and making it possible for him to be present at the Olympics as part of the Athlete Family Support Program, as mentioned in Out. The program gave financial help to families of athletes who couldn't afford to attend the Olympic games, but with the help of J&J, "which donated a $5,000 travel grant, [Mitcham's partner] Lachlan [Flecther] was there to watch his partner take a shot at the medal stand."

When it comes to Calls To Action, the motto of "Reward Good Behavior" is as important as the dedication to force change through complaint.

Commend Johnson & Johnson Pacific for the progressive values of their Support Program at a time when Australia's religious rightwing would rather have seen Lachlan Flecther left behind on the tarmac.

*Don't worry. Though the formatting of the address fields are for Australian addresses, the form will work for non-Australian addresses as well. The drop-down menu includes only Australian states. Just pick one.

Buzzzzz. Contestants, your answers, please....

From the Pocono Record comes a simple reminder: no religious tests, please.

Crowd funding

The recent New York Times article, "Crowd Funding: A Different Way to Pay for the News You Want," is relevant as a topic on any blog, even this one, for its examination of a possible new trend in journalism funding in the near future.

Religious conservatives now less keen on "day-to-day" politics?

Christopher Quinn in the Atlanta Journal Constitution highlights the recent Pew poll in which 50% of self-identified religiously conservative respondents believe "houses of worship should not express views on day-to-day political matters." Whatever that means. Traffic lights and zoning variances? Rush Limbaugh's thought for the day?

Anyway, the figure was 30% back in 2004. Not surprisingly, the poll

found that Republican presidential hopeful Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) has about as much support from conservative and evangelical Christians as President George W. Bush did during the time immediately before the last presidential election.

Thus, we still await evidence of the supposed (and much discussed) post-partisan or possibly even more progressive new generation of evangelicals. The evidence so far: they're basically their parents with a broader agenda. They'll vote like their parents do. They'll just be more likely to be wearing iPods when they do it--and they'll probably be a lot better at using the Internet for fundraising and political organizing.