Understanding the religious right, or what we THINK is the religious right

[mtnsnake]

They might not be as far right as we think they are. Hey, we don't have to be just like them, but maybe we can find ways to work with some of them if we find some common ground.

Interestingly, I was google surfing the net a little while ago and came across a poll done in October of 2003 on this site called Christianity.com. Anyway, the poll question was "Republican or Democrat?". I clicked on the "view results" link and was surprised at what I saw. Out of 863 votes, there were 432 Republicans and 431 Democrats....only one vote separating the two parties! Then I hit the back button and submitted my own vote, which tied it up 432 to 432. I didn't even need to register. Afterwards, I decided not to do anymore voting of my own in their polls, since I'm not a member of their "community" and feel it's in our best interests not to meddle with their results. Anyway, here's the link for that one: http://forums.christianity.com/html/P709885/

After this got my interest, I spent a few seconds checking out a few other of their current polls. There's one going on right now called "Are you happy that Bush won the Presidential Elections?". This one was closer to what I would expect, although not overwhelming. Out of 740 votes, it was a little over 2 to 1 saying yes.

Another poll was titled, "Is it okay for Christians to smoke marijuana?". Again the results surprised me. Out of 35 votes, only 9 said absolutely not. Here's a link to their polls page: http://forums.christianity.com/html/F9/

They have some large discussion forums which I only spent a very short time looking at, and I think there could be some hope. I'm not out to get personally involved in their forums for disagreement's sake, or to infiltrate their polls or anything. That would be disrespectful. However, I think it might be worthwhile just to politely spend some time reading what they have to say WITHOUT getting on there and getting into any flames. It could be an eye opener to see where they're coming from. If we can get past the stage of making fun at everything they say, or how they think, maybe we can make some strides in getting more of them on our side in the future. Like you'd find with any forum, many of them sound reasonable while some are wackos. Sometimes I think we generalize too much. Many of these people might not be as far right as we think they are.....just way more religious. After all, they're Christians, not freepers.

[mtnsnake]

1. When it comes to things like this, they know how to do it in the UK

"Why should Christians choose the Liberal Democrats...? Well… no political party can claim to be uniquely mandated by God, so no party (even a Christian one) should ever say "you must vote for us not for them"."

http://www.christianforum.libdems.org/whylibdem.html