For many Americans faith dictates the way they see the world and the decisions they make, including the ones in politics. This is inevitable and not necessarily a bad thing. Religion has helped shape our country from the very beginning. People on both the left and the right cite religion as the reason for the way they vote, but religion is much more prominent on the right than the left. In my paper I am studying how the right uses religious rhetoric.

President Bush often uses religion in his speeches. One tactic he uses is to frame his policies using religious principles. He used this tactic in a recent speech given at The Southern Baptist Convention Annual Meeting. He opened his speech by talking to his audience about how as Southern Baptists they valued freedom and compassion. He said their Creator had called them to build a more compassionate society “where families are strong, life is valued, and the poor and the sick can count on the love and help of neighbors.” Through out the rest of his speech he used freedom and compassion to frame his policies. He says that the foundation of a compassionate society is a strong family and so we must defend families by creating a constitutional amendment to stop gay marriage, or as he calls it an amendment to protecting the institution of marriage. He also says that building a compassionate society means building a culture of life. When talking about helping the poor he talks about the importance of religious institutions instead of government institutions like welfare (Republicans usually advocate private charities funded in part by the government instead of the social programs Democrats tend to favor). By saying that all these policies are ones of compassion and God wants us to be compassionate, he is making a comparison between what God wants and what he stands for. The message he is sending is that he is the candidate and the Republicans are the party for Christians because they have the same policies that God would have.

While most prominent politicians won’t directly come out and say that God is on the side of the Republicans, many conservative Christian religious leaders like Dr. James Dobson will. One of the most egregious recent examples is Justice Sunday held by the Family Research Council. Justice Sunday was held on Sunday, April 24 of this year and its official title was Justice Sunday –Stopping the Filibuster against people of Faith. The goal of this event was to get the Democrats to stop filibustering George Bush’s nominees to the Federal Judiciary. The organizers of Justice Sunday claimed that the nominees were being filibustered because they were Christians so in this case the people stopping the initiatives that are important to Christians, getting Christian judges on the Federal Judiciary, are the Democrats. The name of the event says a lot. A filibuster is a political term and is used to stop a bill from passing in the senate. By saying that people are filibustering against people of faith they are saying that the people who are filibustering are stopping the political initiatives that are important to people of faith, in this case Christians.

This type of rhetoric obviously doesn’t work on every Christian. (in the last presidential election the country was almost evenly divided but the majority of the people in this country are Christian). But it can be a very effective tactic. Millions of swing voters voted for Bush in the 2004 election because of the way he talks about religion and helped him win. Even more importantly this type of rhetoric pumps up the Republican’s base and gets them to go out and vote. Using religion to frame their policies has been very successful.