The Rise of Fundamentalist Belief

[Warren Stupidity]

A couple months ago, while the protests were raging here in Brazil, I spoke to a local friend about the demands of the protesters. Aside from corruption, lack of infrastructure and poor education, it surprised me to hear that one of the chief complaints of thousands of the protesters had to do with homosexuality.
He said that a large strain of Christian fundamentalism has arisen in Brazil in recent years and the federal government planned to officially label homosexuality a psychiatric disorder and provide funding for corrective “treatments,” — i.e., the infamous “gay camps” where they send LGBT kids to force them to become straight (Spoiler alert: the LGBT kids end up hanging themselves.)

I was surprised not only by the fact that the progressive social issue brought out young, educated Brazilians in droves, but the fact that the rural and religious political contingents of the country are becoming more conservative despite the country’s rapid economic development.

I was similarly surprised in 2010, when in Australia, a friend there told me of the rise of the Christian right pressuring their government to teach intelligent design in science classes and to enforce stricter so-called “family values” laws across the country. I laughed and told her that only loony stuff like that happens in the United States. She wasn’t laughing.

All of this, of course, sounded eerily similar to the political polarization that’s been happening in the US the past 20 years, where evangelical Christian right have pushed to get abortion clinics closed in many states, to limit women’s access to contraceptives, to teach “abstinence only” sex education, to bring prayer to public schools, and generally obstructed the federal government the past three years by refusing to vote on anything other than repealing Obama’s health care plan.

http://markmanson.net/fundamentalism

[Htom Sirveaux]

1. Their shtick isn't working as well in the USA anymore.

so they need to cultivate less worn-out fields elsewhere.

[Warren Stupidity]

5. their deeply held faith based convictions steer the course of one major party

and have forced the other to kow-tow to their nonsense and lunacy.

[Dawson Leery]

2. k/r

The threat is worldwide.

[LongTomH]

3. Evangelicals have been making gains in Central and South America for decades

Also, the political power of the fundamentalist right in the US has been growing for more than 20 years; they're largely responsible for the rise of conservatism: The Reagan Revolution, sometimes known as "The White Trash Revolution."

[Dawson Leery]

4. Evangelicals are the Taliban of the west.