# The Christian Right and Democracy **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [April 7, 2010, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334 "2010-04-07T21:22:56Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![elbows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/b3f665/32.png) [@elbows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elbows)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 9:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/1 "2010-04-07T21:22:56Z")
It seems to me you could make a very strong argument that fundamentalist Christian Right wingers (anti abortionists and their ilk) are anti democratic, in a most unpatriotic sort of way. What I mean is, they were all about majority over morality as long as they were in the majority. The enslavement of blacks is a good example. The morality of it wasn’t their issue, so long as they were in the majority it was all just good democracy in action. Ditto on segregation, again their fall back was democratic majority, morality be damned. But now that they aren’t in the majority, it’s all about the morality. Abortion is a perfect example, it seems to me. Times have changed and the abortion laws were changed by democratically elected majorities and/or their appointees. I find it odd that the fundamentalists are such red, white and blue patriots but can’t support their democracy when it doesn’t go their way. Isn’t the core of patriotism standing by the right of the majority to decide what’s best, regardless of whether it agrees with your personal view? I’m not saying they have to like it, or that they can’t rally people to make the changes they like to see. But how can they call themselves patriots when they can’t accept the outcome unless it goes their way? ---
**Author:** ![Captain\_Amazing](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/6de8d8/32.png) [@Captain\_Amazing](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Captain_Amazing)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 9:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/2 "2010-04-07T21:34:30Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > It seems to me you could make a very strong argument that fundamentalist Christian Right wingers (anti abortionists and their ilk) are anti democratic, in a most unpatriotic sort of way. > > What I mean is, they were all about majority over morality as long as they were in the majority. The enslavement of blacks is a good example. The morality of it wasn’t their issue, so long as they were in the majority it was all just good democracy in action. Christian fundamentalism didn’t really exist in the United States as a movement until about 50 years after slavery was abolished. There were evangelical and revivalist groups before the Civil War, so they might count as “fundamentalists”, depending on how you define the term, but most of them were abolitionist. ---
**Author:** ![flickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7bcc69/32.png) [@flickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flickster)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 9:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/3 "2010-04-07T21:38:18Z")
I think your stance that abortion is generally accepted is somewhat of a stretch Here’s a site that references a multitude of related polls [Polls regarding abortion](http://www.pollingreport.com/abortion.htm) Seems to me the populace is evenly split, at best. The appointed judges ruled on a narrow margin as well. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/4 "2010-04-07T21:43:43Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > It seems to me you could make a very strong argument that fundamentalist Christian Right wingers (anti abortionists and their ilk) are anti democratic, in a most unpatriotic sort of way. An equally strong argument can be made that various groups on the left are just as anti-democratic. Some people (of all political stripes) just don’t like losing. If they are in the majority, democracy’s fine. If they are in the minority, they whine. That’s just the way some people are. ---
**Author:** ![blinkie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/43a26b/32.png) [@blinkie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/blinkie)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/5 "2010-04-07T21:51:21Z")
My question is why so many fundamentalists are so non-christian in their “Christianity” ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 10:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/6 "2010-04-07T22:45:03Z")
Last I heard, the some significant percentage of Christians expect and hope for the Kingdom of God to be established on earth, and soon. Being in favor of uprooting the current government and replacing it with an autocratic monarchy strikes me as pretty anti-democratic and unpatriotic, objectively speaking. ---
**Author:** ![Odesio](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/odesio/32/20003_2.png) [@Odesio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Odesio)\ **Post date:** [April 7, 2010, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/7 "2010-04-07T23:33:19Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > What I mean is, they were all about majority over morality as long as they were in the majority. The enslavement of blacks is a good example. The morality of it wasn’t their issue, so long as they were in the majority it was all just good democracy in action. Ditto on segregation, again their fall back was democratic majority, morality be damned. It is exceedingly unfair and inaccurate to lump modern 20th century fundamentalist with slave owners of the 19th century. American fundamentalism as we know it today was a product of late 19th and early 20th century modern thoughts. In particular, a new wave of Christian theologians who suggested that Christ wasn’t really divine, there was no physical resurrection, etc., etc. So far as segregation in the South went it wasn’t fundamentalist alone that supported it. Also, I would argue that it wasn’t the democratic majority that ended segregation, it was the courts. > [@](#): > > I find it odd that the fundamentalists are such red, white and blue patriots but can’t support their democracy when it doesn’t go their way. Isn’t the core of patriotism standing by the right of the majority to decide what’s best, regardless of whether it agrees with your personal view? Isn’t it odd that homosexuals and the friends of homosexuals can’t support their democracy when it doesn’t go their way? I’m thinking of Proposition 8 in California from November of 2008. Homosexuals say that they’re decent people who deserve the same rights as everyone else. Well, hey, the majority has spoken so they should just shut up and live with what the democratic process has given them. Yeah, that’s a really silly argument. Odesio ---
**Author:** ![Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/qadgop_the_mercotan/32/83_2.png) [@Qadgop\_the\_Mercotan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qadgop_the_Mercotan)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/8 "2010-04-08T00:36:30Z")
> [@Odesio](#): > > Isn’t it odd that homosexuals and the friends of homosexuals can’t support their democracy when it doesn’t go their way? I’m thinking of Proposition 8 in California from November of 2008. Homosexuals say that they’re decent people who deserve the same rights as everyone else. Well, hey, the majority has spoken so they should just shut up and live with what the democratic process has given them. > > Yeah, that’s a really silly argument. > > Odesio It is a great argument, and I hope your comment was tongue in cheek. The nation’s government was never founded on majority rule, but rather on minority rights, so that people would not be stripped of their rights based on the whim of the voting populace. Unfortunately, the rather unusual constitutional structure of California undermines that most vital principle. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 1:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/9 "2010-04-08T01:42:29Z")
Let me tweak that slightly, **Qadgop** : the country was founded on self-government by majority vote – but the Founding Fathers were quite well aware that democracy easily degenerates into mobocracy and ‘the tyranny of the majority’. So a second theme, of proection for individual rights, was introduced – it taking a substantial and widespread supermajority to revise this (by constitutional amendment, which requires supermajorities in both houses of Congress plus majority support in 75% of the states). The courts are empowered to fail to enforce any statute that falls afoul of those protected rights. The Christian Right, except for the Dominionists/Christian Reconstructionists, is solicitous of the democratic process – but believe that God’s Will trumps personal freedom, so laws should enforce the divine intent. (Usually, that is.) That which is considered a sin in Conservative Christian thought is not protected by the constitutional rights mandate. ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 4:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/10 "2010-04-08T04:19:36Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Last I heard, the some significant percentage of Christians expect and hope for the Kingdom of God to be established on earth, and soon. Being in favor of uprooting the current government and replacing it with an autocratic monarchy strikes me as pretty anti-democratic and unpatriotic, objectively speaking. Christian Reconstructionism, and Dominionism. They think this “new world order” will be according to their rules, and they will be calling all the shots. You can lump in the “end timers” too. Each group thinks they will be, giving the orders. ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 12:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/11 "2010-04-08T12:14:40Z")
> [@](#): > > Abortion is a perfect example, it seems to me. Times have changed and the abortion laws were changed by democratically elected majorities and/or their appointees. I assume you don’t mean Roe v. Wade here. Nor [this law](http://www.thepoliticalcarnival.net/2010/02/oklahoma-abortion-law-gets-struck-down.html), nor t[hese](http://www.catholicsinalliance.org/node/19474), or [this](http://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q=cache:jIq7VgO6FeMJ:pacer.ca4.uscourts.gov/opinion.pdf/031821A.P.pdf+Abortion+laws+struck+down&hl=en&gl=us&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESj5SUnwQeiyQwmY21VbaQcRXlTwGaX0PIK6tz3JtLanjYKMMrL3cXPTO6j7B9nTPCGOGLGFAfTl8Npg_27ATV0ssPOAfQWj_7s3tW4EIUQZY3h3pIVjgzPj73xPLbXQ3cXGJ5-5&sig=AHIEtbSvTbVdv8HedITsx265dyVqXx2LJQ), or [this](http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2009-11-08/news/0911070231_1_parental-notice-illinois-abortion-law-parental-consent), when you speak of laws changed by elected representatives. Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 2:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/12 "2010-04-08T14:13:15Z")
Everybody wants democracy as they personally define it, and screw everyone else. What makes it _actual_ democracy is the endless process of compromise in which nobody gets everything they want, but can live with the result. I don’t see any big insights, here. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/13 "2010-04-08T14:48:57Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > What I mean is, they were all about majority over morality as long as they were in the majority. The enslavement of blacks is a good example. The morality of it wasn’t their issue, so long as they were in the majority it was all just good democracy in action. Leaving aside the point **Captain Amazing** made about fundamentalism not existing in the times of slavery, it’s easy to demonstrate that most conservative Christians were strongly opposed to slavery when it existed in America. The Catholic position on slavery in America was given by Pope Paul III in his encyclical [Sublimus Dei](http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Paul03/p3subli.htm) and his stance was clear: > [@](#): > > The enemy of the human race, who opposes all good deeds in order to bring men to destruction, beholding and envying this, invented a means never before heard of, by which he might hinder the preaching of God’s word of Salvation to the people: he inspired his satellites who, to please him, have not hesitated to publish abroad that the Indians of the West and the South, and other people of whom We have recent knowledge should be treated as dumb brutes created for our service, pretending that they are incapable of receiving the Catholic Faith. > > We, who, though unworthy, exercise on earth the power of our Lord and seek with all our might to bring those sheep of His flock who are outside into the fold committed to our charge, consider, however, that the Indians are truly men and that they are not only capable of understanding the Catholic Faith but, according to our information, they desire exceedingly to receive it. Desiring to provide ample remedy for these evils, We define and declare by these Our letters, or by any translation thereof signed by any notary public and sealed with the seal of any ecclesiastical dignitary, to which the same credit shall be given as to the originals, that, notwithstanding whatever may have been or may be said to the contrary, the said Indians and all other people who may later be discovered by Christians, are by no means to be deprived of their liberty or the possession of their property, even though they be outside the faith of Jesus Christ; and that they may and should, freely and legitimately, enjoy their liberty and the possession of their property; nor should they be in any way enslaved; should the contrary happen, it shall be null and have no effect. While positions on the issue from Protestants didn’t arrive until later, most were equally firm. John Wesley, the founder of the Methodist Church, was an extremely aggressive opponent of slavery. Just read his pamphlet [Thoughts Upon Slavery](http://gbgm-umc.org/umhistory/tslavery.html): > [@](#): > > It was some time before the Europeans found a more compendious way of procuring African slaves, by prevailing upon them to make war upon each other, and to sell their prisoners. Till then they seldom had any wars; but were in general quiet and peaceable. But the white men first taught them drunkenness and avarice, and then hired them to sell one another. Nay, by this means, even their Kings are induced to sell their own subjects. So Mr. Moore, factor of the African Company in 1730, informs us: “When the King of Barsalli wants goods or brandy, he sends to the English Governor at James’s Fort, who immediately sends a sloop. Against the time it arrives, he plunders some of his neighbours’ towns, selling the people for the goods he wants. At other times he falls upon one of his own towns, and makes bold to sell his own subjects.” So Monsieur Brue says, “I wrote to the King,” (not the same,) “if he had a sufficient number of slaves, I would treat with him. He seized three hundred of his own people, and sent word he was ready to deliver them for the goods.” He adds: “Some of the natives are always ready” (when well paid) “to surprise and carry off their own countrymen. They come at night without noise, and if they find any lone cottage, surround it and carry off all the people.” Barbot, another French factor, says, “Many of the slaves sold by the Negroes are prisoners of war, or taken in the incursions they make into their enemies’ territories. Others are stolen. Abundance of little Blacks, of both sexes, are stolen away by their neighbours, when found abroad on the road, or in the woods, or else in the corn-fields, at the time of year when their parents keep them there all day to scare away the devouring birds.” That their own parents sell them is utterly false: Whites, not Blacks, are without natural affection! Similarly we can look at the Presbyterian Church and the position they took on slavery in 1815, which declared slavery to be “inconsistent with the Gospel of Jesus Christ”. Nor would it be hard to find similar statements from Puritans, Baptists, Quakers, etc… It is true and highly unfortunate that within some of the Protestant churches, there were groups of southern slave-owners who chose to break away from the national churches and form their own separate, southern churches that would look aside rather than taking a stance on slavery. However, they represented only a small portion of American Christianity in total. There simply is no basis for what you say about the Christian right and slavery. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 4:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/14 "2010-04-08T16:20:56Z")
Yeah. Those unpatriotic Christians… they should take their example from how the left reacted to the presidential election of 2000. It was an election decided by a democratic process and/or appointed officials of elected office holders. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotGrrrl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/9dc877/32.png) [@PatriotGrrrl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotGrrrl)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/15 "2010-04-08T16:25:41Z")
Seems to me that if everyone was A-OK with anything their country could possibly do as long as it was the will of the majority, there wouldn’t be much progress. A certain amount of (hopefully legal and peaceful) dissent is necessary for real change, and is, IMO, an important aspect of patriotism. ---
**Author:** ![Revtim](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/revtim/32/1042_2.png) [@Revtim](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revtim)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 4:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/16 "2010-04-08T16:36:43Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Yeah. Those unpatriotic Christians… they should take their example from how the left reacted to the presidential election of 2000. It was an election decided by a democratic process and/or appointed officials of elected office holders. I would love to see how today’s right would have handled that, if instead of their guy ending up being president, it was, say, Barack Obama. These people can’t handle freaking _health care reform_ without completely losing their goddamn minds. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 5:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/17 "2010-04-08T17:32:39Z")
> [@elbows](#): > > Ditto on segregation, again their fall back was democratic majority, morality be damned. Really? I don’t see that at all. As Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. said: > [@](#): > > You express a great deal of anxiety over our willingness to break laws. This is certainly a legitimate concern. Since we so diligently urge people to obey the Supreme Court’s decision of 1954 outlawing segregation in the public schools, at first glance it may seem rather paradoxical for us consciously to break laws. One may well ask: “How can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer lies in the fact that there are two types of laws: just and unjust. I would be the first to advocate obeying just laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws. Conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws. I would agree with St. Augustine that “an unjust law is no law at all.” > > Now, what is the difference between the two? How does one determine whether a law is just or unjust? A just law is a man made code that squares with the moral law or the law of God. An unjust law is a code that is out of harmony with the moral law. To put it in the terms of St. Thomas Aquinas: An unjust law is a human law that is not rooted in eternal law and natural law. Any law that uplifts human personality is just. Any law that degrades human personality is unjust. All segregation statutes are unjust because segregation distorts the soul and damages the personality. It gives the segregator a false sense of superiority and the segregated a false sense of inferiority. Segregation, to use the terminology of the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber, substitutes an “I it” relationship for an “I thou” relationship and ends up relegating persons to the status of things. Hence segregation is not only politically, economically and sociologically unsound, it is morally wrong and sinful. Paul Tillich has said that sin is separation. Is not segregation an existential expression of man’s tragic separation, his awful estrangement, his terrible sinfulness? Thus it is that I can urge men to obey the 1954 decision of the Supreme Court, for it is morally right; and I can urge them to disobey segregation ordinances, for they are morally wrong. > > Let us consider a more concrete example of just and unjust laws. An unjust law is a code that a numerical or power majority group compels a minority group to obey but does not make binding on itself. This is difference made legal. By the same token, a just law is a code that a majority compels a minority to follow and that it is willing to follow itself. This is sameness made legal. Let me give another explanation. A law is unjust if it is inflicted on a minority that, as a result of being denied the right to vote, had no part in enacting or devising the law. Who can say that the legislature of Alabama which set up that state’s segregation laws was democratically elected? Throughout Alabama all sorts of devious methods are used to prevent Negroes from becoming registered voters, and there are some counties in which, even though Negroes constitute a majority of the population, not a single Negro is registered. Can any law enacted under such circumstances be considered democratically structured? > > Sometimes a law is just on its face and unjust in its application. For instance, I have been arrested on a charge of parading without a permit. Now, there is nothing wrong in having an ordinance which requires a permit for a parade. But such an ordinance becomes unjust when it is used to maintain segregation and to deny citizens the First-Amendment privilege of peaceful assembly and protest. > > I hope you are able to see the distinction I am trying to point out. In no sense do I advocate evading or defying the law, as would the rabid segregationist. That would lead to anarchy. One who breaks an unjust law must do so openly, lovingly, and with a willingness to accept the penalty. I submit that an individual who breaks a law that conscience tells him is unjust, and who willingly accepts the penalty of imprisonment in order to arouse the conscience of the community over its injustice, is in reality expressing the highest respect for law. > > Of course, there is nothing new about this kind of civil disobedience. It was evidenced sublimely in the refusal of Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego to obey the laws of Nebuchadnezzar, on the ground that a higher moral law was at stake. It was practiced superbly by the early Christians, who were willing to face hungry lions and the excruciating pain of chopping blocks rather than submit to certain unjust laws of the Roman Empire. To a degree, academic freedom is a reality today because Socrates practiced civil disobedience. In our own nation, the Boston Tea Party represented a massive act of civil disobedience. > > We should never forget that everything Adolf Hitler did in Germany was “legal” and everything the Hungarian freedom fighters did in Hungary was “illegal.” It was “illegal” to aid and comfort a Jew in Hitler’s Germany. Even so, I am sure that, had I lived in Germany at the time, I would have aided and comforted my Jewish brothers. If today I lived in a Communist country where certain principles dear to the Christian faith are suppressed, I would openly advocate disobeying that country’s antireligious laws. > > I must make two honest confessions to you, my Christian and Jewish brothers. First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; That seems to be pretty much the opposite position, that democratic decisions should be obeyed as long as they are within the bounds of the moral law, but not when they transgress the moral law. > [@](#): > > I find it odd that the fundamentalists are such red, white and blue patriots but can’t support their democracy when it doesn’t go their way. Isn’t the core of patriotism standing by the right of the majority to decide what’s best, regardless of whether it agrees with your personal view? No, I think the core of patriotism is loving one’s country, and the more you love your country, the less you’re willing to tolerate mistakes made just because they’re made by your country. If you love someone or something, you want it to become better. A parent who truly loves their kid will discipline the kid when he misbehaves. A parent who’s indifferent to the kid may not bother. Similarly a patriot will discipline the country when the country misbehaves. (Or if the patriot can’t discipline the country single-handedly, they’ll at least do the best they can.) ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/18 "2010-04-08T17:39:31Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Yeah. Those unpatriotic Christians… they should take their example from how the left reacted to the presidential election of 2000. It was an election decided by a democratic process and/or appointed officials of elected office holders. Yeah, it really sucked how all the blue states seceded over that. ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/19 "2010-04-08T17:44:17Z")
The Christian response to a woman with an unwanted pregnancy is to love and support the woman and her child before considering any other thing. That really doesn’t describe our legal situation. The laws of men are not supposed to have precedence to the dedicated follower of Christ, but the social cost of disobedience is similarly not supposed to have precedence over the choice to do God’s will, rather than obey Man’s laws. None of these are democratic in their foundation. When you decide to love God and Country, you have to be responsible for both of those choices, to both of those masters, and you will fail. Accepting your personal responsibilities doesn’t mean you will live in a comfortable home, with good food, and an SUV. It means you will give up all those things, rather than fail to follow the will of God, and accept the civil consequences if you disobey the Law of the Land, without harming those who choose differently. Love, always choose love. Of course, you won’t win many elections. Tris ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [April 8, 2010, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334/20 "2010-04-08T17:46:18Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Yeah. Those unpatriotic Christians… they should take their example from how the left reacted to the presidential election of 2000. It was an election decided by a democratic process and/or appointed officials of elected office holders. You mean, “I object to the highly partisan decisions made, but I agreed to abide by the rule of law, so in the face of a final court decision, I’ll register my discontent with it but abide by it,” then yes, they should take an exmple from the Left. 😛 [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-christian-right-and-democracy/535334.md?page=2)