How 'One Nation' Didn't Become 'Under God' Until The '50s Religious Revival

[MADem]

10. The debate continued when Roman Catholic John Kennedy (D) was elected President.

People who were alive during that period will remember that it was, as Joe Biden might say, a "big f-ing deal" that he made it to the White House at all. It wasn't all Bing Crosby and "Going My Way" -- many people were insisting that JFK would "take orders from ROME!!!" if he were elected. Roman Catholics, of course, were thrilled. Others, not so much. JFK gave a speech in Houston, TX to a group of protestant ministers assuaging the frayed nerves of people who were freaking out about his choice of church. He broke the "religion barrier" for Roman Catholics, no one said much, if anything, to Eugene McCarthy, Robert Kennedy, Ted Kennedy, John Kerry, Joe Biden, Bill Richardson, Wes Clark, Dennis Kucinich, etc about their religion after that, except maybe to push buttons about the choice issue. On the GOP/Wingnut side, you've got Sam Brownback, Pat Buchanan, Rudy "Bad Catholic" Giuliani, George Pataki, etc. They waved the choice thing like a bloody battle shirt and used the religious argument to back themselves up--in any event, it didn't hurt them amongst their loyal followers.

Mitt RMoney tried to do a similar thing--also in TX-- with his Mormonism--it didn't go over as well. That could very well be because Mitt Romney is an unctuous little shit who is disliked; perhaps if Jon Huntsman gave the same speech it might have gone over better.

The whole culture/religious war brouhaha had been building for some time as we entered the seventies, too. Nixon's "Silent Majority" of quiet, "average" and taciturn churchgoing "regular guys" gradually morphed into Reagan's "Moral Majority" but before Reagan took the WH, Jimmy Carter (D) kicked up plenty of ethical dust on that whole Southern Baptist religious score, too. He didn't hesitate to talk about how his religious beliefs informed his decsion-making. That era was when the evangelicals figured out that they could bully the GOP.

Looks like that orbit is finally starting to degrade, at long last. It will never disappear, entirely, but I think people are losing enthusiasm for throwing large sums of money at ministers to hand to politicians who don't seem to be doing much, if anything, to actually improve their lives (or, for that matter, stop behaviors they find objectionable).