Recently, political comedian Samantha Bee took a close look at the history behind the abusive relationship between the Religious Right and the Republican party.
In an effort to explain why evangelicals are eager to support Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump this year, Bee took us back 50 years to the creation of the Religious Right.
In the 70’s, Heritage Foundation co-founder Paul Weyrich saw white churches as the new power base in politics. After close examination, Weyrich discovered that many of the Republican party’s discriminatory, xenophobic, authoritarian loving views were also abundant within the conservative white church community.
That’s when Weyrich had a chocolate and peanut butter epiphany, that instead of giving birth to a delicious candy, gave birth to what we know today as the Religious Right. Political analyst Morton Blackwell described evangelical Christians as the “largest tract of virgin timber on the political landscape.”
Prompting Bee to retort: “Well, technically virgin if you don’t count butt stuff.”
She then goes on to reveal a surprising fact. How the Religious Right wasn’t mobilized following the Roe V. Wade decision in 1973, but instead it was:
“good old nativism and anti-government anger when the IRS challenged the evangelicals God given right to go to school without black people.”
That’s correct, the Religious Right began kicking up a stink only after the all white ultra-conservative Christian College known as Bob Jones University was threatened with removal of its tax exempt status by the IRS if it did not comply with the 1954 Brown V. Board of Education Supreme Court decision which ordered all schools and universities to desegregate.
Bee then addressed the LGBTQA community:
“Oh, don’t worry gays, we’ll get to you,” she reassured. You’re just harder to spot.”
After mobilizing against giving black people equal access to education, the newly found Religious Right needed to expand their political agenda beyond just “hating the darkies.”
“What to do, what to do,” mused Bee.
Bee showed a clip of a political lecturer detailing the Evangelical Right’s next step.
“Once evangelical leaders mobilized in defense of Bob Jones University, they held a conference call to discuss the prospect of other political activities. Several people suggested possible issues. and finally a voice on the end on one of the lines said, ‘How about abortion?'”
Bee joked:
“Hey, why not. It could have been werewolves, but they were going alphabetically.”
And the rest is history.
But wait, what about Donald Trump? Wasn’t Ted Cruz born to be the perfect evangelical candidate? Well as Bee explains:
“The new evangelicals are happy to ditch the bible and for good ole white nativism and anti-government anger.”
“Heeey! Just like you taught them, Bee exclaims.”
Featured image Screengrab via YouTube.
