From The Guardian here.
James Dobson's retirement as head of Focus on the Family, the Colorado evangelical behemoth, marks the death of the old Christian right. Dobson was among the last of a generation of politically connected ultra-conservative evangelicals with a national audience.
Other stars of the movement – D James Kennedy and Jerry Falwell – have died in recent years. Only Pat Robertson remains, though no one pays much attention to him anymore. These men presented politics as a Manichean battle against godless liberalism, their language alternating between banal paeans to American suburbia and crazy brimstone-filled excoriation of their enemies. Their heirs, pastors like Rick Warren, largely share their political positions, but they struggle to appear non-partisan and reasonable. Falwell hawked videos accusing Bill Clinton of murder. Warren gave the invocation at President Barack Obama's inauguration.
But the legacy of the old Christian right lives on in the Republican party. Indeed, today's Republican party is the real successor to organisations like the Christian Coalition and Focus on the Family. Its complete capture by the forces of social reaction is part of what has made the old Christian right obsolete. . . .
A lot of good they've done for the Republican Party.
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