# The Religious Right Is Dumb, And the Secular Left Is Paranoid **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [November 15, 2016, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075 "2016-11-15T17:23:19Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 8:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/21 "2016-11-16T08:58:41Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > Of all the issues listed here, I am least worried about gay marriage. I do not see how the Supreme Court pick could overturn the gay marriage ruling. I do not see how a law could be passed to end gay marriage that would be upheld by the court in its current configuration plus Trump’s pick. Because he can possibly get one more pick if anyone else on the Court dies. And then gay marriage was decided 5/4. So his first judge is part of the 4, and then the second judge replaces one of the 5, flipping the court. Then all it takes is for new legislation to be brought forth, run through the appeals system, and get to the Court. The main thing that can stop them is if they don’t get rid of the fillibuster in the Senate, either altogether or for Supreme Court picks. Then the Democrats can just refuse to confirm anyone who is likely to be on the against side. They should also do so for the anti-abortion side. Yes, one my slip through, but hopefully not two or more. Right now, as a Christian, I am praying more for the health of the Supreme Court than I have in my entire life. Maybe it does nothing, but I can’t see what else I can do. ---
**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:** [November 16, 2016, 9:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/22 "2016-11-16T09:07:37Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > Right now, as a Christian, I am praying more for the health of the Supreme Court than I have in my entire life. Maybe it does nothing, but I can’t see what else I can do. Well, you could write to your senators, express your views. ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 2:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/23 "2016-11-16T14:15:06Z")
> [@marshmallow](#): > > It’s not clear if Trump has any true positions he’s willing to fight for. Some who know him have said he parrots the person he talked to last. I expect him to rubber stamp whatever his conservative handlers give him. The left accused GWB of being a puppet of Cheney and PNAC. Compared to Trump, GWB may be a real boy. For those of us who didn’t vote for Trump, it boggles the mind how 61 million people felt he was qualified to be president. I think the only thing Trump truly will fight for is his ego and reputation. Which means both parties as well as international interests are going to be using carrots and sticks to manipulate him for the next four years. Surgical praise and criticism to make the puppet dance. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/24 "2016-11-16T14:22:22Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > The main thing that can stop them is if they don’t get rid of the fillibuster in the Senate, either altogether or for Supreme Court picks. Are you aware that the Senate already got rid of the filibuster for appointments other than Supreme Court ones? > [@](#): > > Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pushed through a controversial change to Senate rules Thursday that will make it easier to approve President Obama’s nominees but threatens to further divide an already polarized Congress. > > Fifty-two Senate Democrats and independents voted to weaken the power of the filibuster. The change reduces the threshold from 60 votes to 51 votes for Senate approval of executive and judicial nominees against unanimous GOP opposition. Remember? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/25 "2016-11-16T14:37:49Z")
Trump’s supreme court shortlist is still rabidly anti-LGBT. Why shouldn’t we be worried? ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [November 16, 2016, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/26 "2016-11-16T14:38:17Z")
> [@astorian](#): > > Trump is on record as being FINE with gay marriage and he won’t overturn it. … > Trump doesn’t care about abortion either!!! NOBODY ought to believe for a split second that Trump is truly opposed morally to abortion. I’d be willing to wager a man like Trump has caused (maybe even paid for) a few abortions himself. I think you misunderstand why religious people supported Trump. Nobody with any sense thought Trump was going to do anything about gay marriage or abortion; those horses have left the barn. Those issues, as political matters in 2016, are settled, dead, over. Voting for someone because they opposed gay marriage makes as much sense as voting for someone because they opposed Jimmy Carter on the Panama Canal. Nor did many support him because they thought he was any kind of moral role model himself. That would be idiotic. Religious conservatives voted for Trump because 1. of reasons other than religion. The Venn circles for “Evangelical” and “White working class” overlap pretty heavily, after all. 2. Supreme Court 3. Because they sense that Trump will fight for them in the battles to come. It doesn’t do any good to elect someone who is morally unimpeachable and ideologically perfect if he/she folds like a pup tent as soon as someone calls them “intolerant/sexist/homophobic/islamophobic.” I think most thinking people on the religious right are coming to understand that the fights to determine whose ethos will dominate the culture are over, and that they lost. The fights of the future are about whether or not traditional Christians will just be able to live lives consistent with their beliefs, or if they will be the ones getting forced to live in the closet. Trump, to the extent he has a social ideology, seems to be a live-and-let-live guy. In 2016, that puts him on their side. Add in Mike Pence as a guy who is also willing to fight for live-and-let-live, and it’s a no-brainer. ---
**Author:** ![JR\_Brown](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/d6d6ee/32.png) [@JR\_Brown](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JR_Brown)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 11:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/27 "2016-11-17T23:24:13Z")
> [@furt](#): > > I think most thinking people on the religious right are coming to understand that the fights to determine whose ethos will dominate the culture are over, and that they lost. The fights of the future are about whether or not traditional Christians will just be able to live lives consistent with their beliefs, or if they will be the ones getting forced to live in the closet. Trump, to the extent he has a social ideology, seems to be a live-and-let-live guy. In 2016, that puts him on their side. Add in Mike Pence as a guy who is also willing to fight for live-and-let-live, and it’s a no-brainer. Dude. Nobody is asking religious people to “live in the closet”. We asking them to not use their religion as an excuse for bigotry and discrimination. They can believe whatever they want as long as it does not affect the rights and wellbeing of other people. And the idea of Pence as a “live-and-let-live guy” is absolutely laughable. This is a guy who supports throwing gay kids into “conversion camps” and electroshocking the gay out of them. ---
**Author:** ![Kamino\_Neko](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kamino_neko/32/34_2.png) [@Kamino\_Neko](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kamino_Neko)\ **Post date:** [November 17, 2016, 11:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/28 "2016-11-17T23:47:56Z")
> [@JR\_Brown](#): > > Dude. Nobody is asking religious people to “live in the closet”. We asking them to not use their religion as an excuse for bigotry and discrimination. They can believe whatever they want as long as it does not affect the rights and wellbeing of other people. The problem is the Religious Right don’t know the difference. See: Every ‘religious freedom’ law, which give people the right to enforce their beliefs on others. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/29 "2016-11-18T00:21:10Z")
> [@Snowboarder\_Bo](#): > > [Says who?](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IAdGYYsG7yc) > > 😛 As funny as that was to watch, “polls” ended up being a pretty shitty metric for whether Trump was down or not this year. ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 12:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/30 "2016-11-18T00:23:25Z")
> [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](#): > > Hate crimes and just plain incidents of bigotry are spiking … Cite? Is there empirical evidence of this, or just some news stories? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/31 "2016-11-18T00:29:50Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > For those of us who didn’t vote for Trump, it boggles the mind how 61 million people felt he was qualified to be president. > > I think the only thing Trump truly will fight for is his ego and reputation. Which means both parties as well as international interests are going to be using carrots and sticks to manipulate him for the next four years. Surgical praise and criticism to make the puppet dance. I think that results so far this year have proven that neither political party can’t do much to stop Donald Trump. Wouldn’t you agree? And the fairly strong majority of international interests were opposed to a Trump presidency, but they seem to have failed as well. ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 12:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/32 "2016-11-18T00:48:35Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Cite? Is there empirical evidence of this, or just some news stories? [FBI: New Hate Crimes Spike, Most Sharply Against Muslims](http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/14/us/fbi-hate-crime-report-muslims/index.html) ---
**Author:** ![Rushgeekgirl](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rushgeekgirl/32/3715_2.png) [@Rushgeekgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rushgeekgirl)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/33 "2016-11-18T00:50:15Z")
> [@HurricaneDitka](#): > > Cite? Is there empirical evidence of this, or just some news stories? What source would you accept? ---
**Author:** ![Translucent\_Daydream](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/translucent_daydream/32/16170_2.png) [@Translucent\_Daydream](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Translucent_Daydream)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 1:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/34 "2016-11-18T01:44:40Z")
**Miller** to the rescue ^^ ---
**Author:** ![Shodan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9f8e36/32.png) [@Shodan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shodan)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 1:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/35 "2016-11-18T13:27:38Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > [FBI: New Hate Crimes Spike, Most Sharply Against Muslims](http://www.cnn.com/2016/11/14/us/fbi-hate-crime-report-muslims/index.html) Assuming this is meant to establish that Trump is responsible, do you have any data from the period of the election or after? Regards, Shodan ---
**Author:** ![Smitty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e274bd/32.png) [@Smitty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smitty)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 3:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/36 "2016-11-18T15:07:42Z")
> [@Wesley\_Clark](#): > > Here is why those of us on the left are paranoid > > Mass deportations Of people who are breaking the law by being here. Good. > [@](#): > > Trumps lack of respect for his critics or the rule of law Just like Obama has done for the last 8 years > [@](#): > > Trump conning and robbing people who trusted him Sounds like a history of the Clinton Foundation > [@](#): > > Trumps history of a using the legal system to terrorize, intimidate and bankrupt his critics See the IRS under Obama > [@](#): > > Trump being in charge of the military and nukes As opposed to Hillary? Are you insane? > [@](#): > > Paul Ryan designing the budget and Trump blindly signing it Sounds great > [@](#): > > Trump triggering a trade war that causes a recession or other economic calamity. So the same position as Bernie. > [@](#): > > Trump follows through with his claims to ban or register Muslims Paranoid lunacy and not what he said > [@](#): > > Trump refuses to accept defeat if he loses reelection in 2020. More paranoid lunacy > [@](#): > > Trumps win has emboldened and made mainstream the worst aspects of humanity Which is what happened the last 8 years, from the viewpoint of the right, and is one of the main reason you lost. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/37 "2016-11-18T16:10:22Z")
> [@JR\_Brown](#): > > Dude. Nobody is asking religious people to “live in the closet”. We asking them to not use their religion as an excuse for bigotry and discrimination. They can believe whatever they want as long as it does not affect the rights and wellbeing of other people. The point is that the fights of the future are not going to be over the rights of homosexuals/transgendered to do \_\_\_. Those issues are settled. Rather, they will be about the extent to which traditionally religious people can be forced to say or do things that violate their beliefs. e.g. can religiously-affiliated wedding venues decline same-sex weddings; can churches decline to offer transgender bathrooms; can religious schools teach traditional Christian morality in the classroom; can religious hospitals decline to perform abortions, etc. For religious people, their religion impacts every part of how they live, and for religious organizations, things like schools and hospitals are an integral part of their identity. The free _exercise_ of religion definitionally involves more than merely promising that people can _believe_ what they want – it includes actions, including those that impact the public and may collide with the rights of others. Sorting out those competing rights will be the task of the legislature and the courts. > [@](#): > > And the idea of Pence as a “live-and-let-live guy” is absolutely laughable. This is a guy who supports throwing gay kids into “conversion camps” and electroshocking the gay out of them. I did not say he was a “live-and-let-live guy.” The point was that Pence has demonstrated his willingness to fight, and the battles to come are going to be over “live-and-let-live” issues. ---
**Author:** ![Una\_Persson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/una_persson/32/346_2.png) [@Una\_Persson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Una_Persson)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/38 "2016-11-18T16:53:50Z")
> [@furt](#): > > The point is that the fights of the future are not going to be over the rights of homosexuals/transgendered to do \_\_\_. Those issues are settled. Indeed? When did that happen? ---
**Author:** ![HurricaneDitka](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/96bed5/32.png) [@HurricaneDitka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HurricaneDitka)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 6:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/39 "2016-11-18T18:22:11Z")
> [@Rushgeekgirl](#): > > What source would you accept? An FBI report covering the election period and afterwards, but it sounds like we’ll have to wait for a year for those statistics to be available. I don’t consider SPLC very credible. ---
**Author:** ![furt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/439d5e/32.png) [@furt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furt)\ **Post date:** [November 18, 2016, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075/40 "2016-11-18T20:45:12Z")
> [@Una\_Persson](#): > > Indeed? When did that happen? Where have you been for the last two decades? I can’t think of a major gay / trans issue that 1. Has not already been essentially decided, either formerly in law, or via persuasion. 2. is not one that is an issue of resolving gay / trans rights versus others rights of conscience. If you can, please tell me. On the other hand, I see obvious issues where religious groups desire to operate in accord with their beliefs puts them at odds with the new cultural/legal consensus. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-religious-right-is-dumb-and-the-secular-left-is-paranoid/772075.md?page=3)