36 The nature of American politics
lics split almost fifty–fifty between the parties, but four years later roughly
80 per cent of Catholics voted for the Catholic candidate, John F. Kennedy,
and only 20 per cent for his Protestant opponent. In the election of 1960
Kennedy increased the percentage of the Democratic vote by nearly 20 per
cent in states with high proportions of Catholic voters compared with only
2 per cent in states where the number of Catholics was low. The following
example, given by John H. Fenton, of the effect of religious divisions within
a community, although it may not be typical, shows how religious affiliation
can affect politics. In Nelson County, Kentucky, which was half Baptist and
half Catholic, Kennedy received only 35 per cent of the vote in four predomi-
nantly Baptist precincts, but in five largely Catholic precincts he received
88 per cent of the total vote. Nationally, however, the tendency of Catholics
to vote for a member of their own church was more than offset by those Prot-
estant voters who switched to the support of Nixon on religious grounds. By
contrast, the candidacy of John Kerry in 2004 seemed to provoke relatively
little religious controversy. Although Kerry is a practising Catholic, in the
campaign he adopted ‘liberal’ attitudes towards issues such as abortion. In
fact he came under attack more strongly from some Catholic bishops who
condemned his advocacy of a woman’s ‘right to privacy’. In the event a major-
ity of Catholics voted for George W. Bush, in a slightly greater proportion
than the electorate as a whole, perhaps because of their perception of his
views on moral issues.
The most important recent manifestation of the significance of religion in
American politics lies in the revival of fundamentalist Protestant ideas and
the involvement of their proponents in elections and in attempts to influ-
ence government policy at all levels. The ‘born-again’ movement and the
‘Moral Majority’ demanded that fundamentalist religious values should be
adopted as the guiding lines for action in all fields of government policy. In
the election of 1976 the Democratic candidate, Jimmy Carter, received the
support of many southern fundamentalists who desired a more conservative
and ‘Christian’ approach to government. Carter was, however, a great disap-
pointment to them, and in the run-up to the election of 1980 the Republican
candidate, Ronald Reagan, assiduously courted this group. Political divisions
along religious lines were particularly evident in the 1984 elections. While
Catholic voters split relatively evenly between Reagan and Mondale, 73 per
cent of white Protestants voted for Reagan and 80 per cent of those whites
who described themselves as ‘born-again Christians’ voted for him. The lead-
ers of the Moral Majority also conducted campaigns against ‘liberal’ Sena-
tors and Congressmen, and many of the latter were beaten in the election. In
state and local politics fundamentalist groups battled to further their views
on subjects such as abortion, women’s rights and the teaching of evolution
in the schools.
By the time of the election of George W. Bush in 2000 the connection
between the religious right and the Republican Party was firmly established.
Bush, himself a Southern Methodist, received the support of fundamentalist