Christian Right

Christian right or religious right is a term used mainly in the United States to label right-wing Christian political factions that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies. Christian conservatives principally seek to apply their understanding of the teachings of Christianity to politics and to public policy by proclaiming the value of those teachings or by seeking to use those teachings to influence law and public policy.

In the U.S., the Christian right is an informal coalition formed around a core of evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholics. The Christian right draws additional support from politically conservative mainline Protestants, Jews, and Mormons. The movement has its roots in American politics going back as far as the 1940s and has been especially influential since the 1970s. Its influence draws, in part, from grassroots activism as well as from focus on social issues and from the ability to motivate the electorate around those issues. The Christian right is notable today for advancing socially conservative positions on issues including school prayer, intelligent design, embryonic stem cell research, homosexuality,contraception, abortion, and pornography. Although the term "Christian right" is most commonly associated with politics in the United States, similar Christian conservative groups can be found in the political cultures of other Christian-majority nations.

The Christian right is "also known as the New Christian Right (NCR) or the Religious Right", although some consider the religious right to be "a slightly broader category than Christian Right".

John C. Green of the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life states that Jerry Falwell used the label religious right to describe himself. Gary Schneeberger, vice president of media and public relations for Focus on the Family, states that "[t]erms like 'religious right' have been traditionally used in a pejorative way to suggest extremism. The phrase 'socially conservative evangelicals' is not very exciting, but that's certainly the way to do it."

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