Yes, weird Christian beliefs do influence America
BY AMANDA MARCOTTE
Does it really matter that America is home to a bunch of religious fanatics who constantly spin lurid and offensive ideas about how the world works? It’s an interesting question, in light of the inevitable fundamentalist wankery that has risen up in response to discussion over the United States intervening in the civil war in Syria. USA Today published an article about the various Christian “end times” fanatics who are latching onto the Syrian conflict as evidence for their apocalypse that never quite comes.
Hamilton Nolan of Gawker was skeptical, noting that the article was vague about which Christian websites were making these connections and that the only named Christians cautioned against making these connections. After a bit of quick digging, Nolan discovered that one of the most mainstream conduits of the Syria = Apocalypse theory is the Blaze, Glenn Beck’s website. “Fear not, humanity,” Nolan wrote, “all remains in equilibrium.” The implication being that Glenn Beck and the Blaze are understood as marginal characters, so their rantings shouldn’t be of any concern to the average Gawker reader.
It’s a common refrain aimed at any journalist who covers the religious right and its weird, paranoid mindset, as I did recently on AlterNet with a list of 10 Christian conspiracy theories. The idea is that by giving these marginal characters attention, you actually make the problem worse. A recent Cracked article flirted with that idea, describing Robertson’s show as “a fundamentalist Christian slant that lost its cultural cachet years ago” and suggesting that by giving attention to the crazy things Robertson says, the media lets the 700 Club “pretend to be relevant again.”
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The problem with that theory is that right-wing, apocalypse-obsessed Christians are not marginal characters who have little power in the world. They constitute a huge percentage of Americans, and just as disturbingly, they have influence over another huge number of Americans. They actually don’t want attention drawn to their wacky beliefs a good deal of the time. On the contrary, the preferred fundamentalist right-wing communication strategy is to use their own spaces—spaces that are often far from the prying eyes of the larger world—to talk about their lurid fantasies, and they prefer to show a more sensible, moderate face to the larger world.
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http://www.salon.com/2013/09/12/yes_weird_christian_beliefs_do_influence_america_partner/
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I prefer all religious folks do that instead of just lip service. It helps young generations growing up look and say, :WTF: 
