The American Evangelical and Fundementalist movements aren’t that old. Early roots during the colonial era. Formalized theology in the post civil war era revival. Only becoming common/popular in the 20’s.
And popular discussion on abortion, and policy regarding such things doesn’t go back that far.
Catholic opposition to abortion, birth control, and family planning goes back further. As it does for a lot of other sects in the Religious Right. Its not just Evangelicals. And Evangelicals are hardly the largest group of sects in there.
They’re some what the driver and have the biggest influence on American Right wing politics due to really strict block voting. But they are not the default Christianity, as much as we treat them as such. And the roots of their particular ideas, and their particular ideas in themselves don’t neccisarily mean anything for the history or beliefs of other sects.
Its not like these groups just decided to be opposed to abortion one day. Most of them have been opposed to Abortion as long as having a stance on Abortion has been a thing. And for more recent groups (Mormons, Evangelicals) have pretty much been anti-abortion for their entire short history, or a pretty big chunk of it.
That’s basically what happened. Most of the socialist leadership got killed in 1916, and the survivors of the civil war were mostly deeply religious. Every time .I walk past Jim Larkin’s statue in town I feel like we’re still fighting for the Republic he wanted.
Abortion was never legal but the 8th amendment was added to the constitution in the 80s in response to Roe vs Wade. Pro-lifers feared abortion could be introduced so this amendment was added to prevent any legislation that would allow for abortion to be introduced.
Not unlike my own hair, which is largely brown with bits of red mixed in. My beard (when I grow it) is much more dominantly red, and shockingly red in bright light.
Even the two ladies in front, you see red in the light reflected off the top locks of hair. There’s plenty enough red hair to make the joke, IMO.
Also, many were unable to because Irish citizens are only allowed to vote if they were resident in Ireland on September 1st in the previous year. I’ve heard of a lot of people in this situation paying for the flights of other Irish people who were eligible to vote but couldn’t afford a ticket home.
I’ve always felt that the main reason marriage equality came to the US is because of fred phelps and his hateful ‘god-hates-fags-family’ disease / project.
the family marching around with stupid signs and spewing hate just turned off people who probably had never really thought about gay people until that moment. They may have been neutral about the issue but seeing phelps they realized that THEY did NOT want to be associated with THAT kind of hate.
I sure have stopped to yell at those people! My own first child-to-be had just recently been miscarried (for clarity wasn’t the pregnant one), so I was not in a good mood.
The sad thing is that when I’ve seen those protests they’ve almost exclusively been carried out by kids. I’m sure there is a 40- or 50-something behind the whole thing, but unless they are present, I don’t want to walk over and make a scene of a grown-ass adult telling off a bunch of pre-schoolers (to be fair, teenagers).
I’m sure it didn’t help. I’m not sure too many people who were actively anti-gay marriage or homophobic would be bothered by “God Hates Fags” because. Well that’s sort of the political position there. At root.
But when those guys were protesting the funerals of dead soldiers. And specifically because “God hates The United State because its full of Fags”? People who didn’t really have a horse in the race would definitely have gotten pushed in a particular direction
The root for the rise of marriage equality in the US. And for a lot of similar stuff is in the big generational divides of religiosity and political alignment. Post Baby boomer Americans have grown increasingly socially progressive. Less religious. And are far more likely to fall towards the left. But even among those younger Americans who still sit with the GOP, or center right. Or even solidly on the right. There’s just much less support for social conservative positions. With a clear trend further in that direction as you look younger.
So for the US there was a slow, obvious trend. And these big bursts of public opinion change go along with various blocks of younger voters entering the electorate. Especially early “Millennials” in the 00’s. Politicians. Being still mostly Boomers and older. Just sort of missed that. And had to rapidly catch up to maintain their positions (on the left) or attract younger voters.
Ireland its a lot more specifically tied to the Molestation and other Church scandals. There’s been a lot of church abuses and weird there for a long time. There’s been some scandal about them for a long while. And a slow back and forth movement to completely secularize the constitution and government. But there’s a clear identifiable collapse since the Molestation Scandal and everything that spun out of it “broke” in the aughts. And unlike the US the scandal and new versions of it kept breaking, expanding, and revealing new, worse shit. And its sill sort of doing that.
So there’s this massive, all at once drop in support for the Church. Religiosity. And support for social conservative policy. Among the young yeah. But also among the not particularly old. In just the last 2 decades. With most of it happen within a 10 year span. Together with an economy that means more young Irish people either stay in Ireland. Or return after short stints abroad instead of immigrating permanently. Means there’s been a younger population there over all the past 10 or 15 years. Its kind of the same pathway. But compressed because of local conditions.
Yeah, the thing with running a cult is that the more the “rest of society” opposes you, the more you hold onto your membership. I’m not sure this was a conscious strategy, but it was in their interest to push society to be more like what they hate.
I imagine the people with giant bloody posters on street corners are doing the same thing.
yeah, I did forget to mention those idiots “protesting” funerals: that was The Last Straw for sure.
and I’m not claiming it changed the minds of any bigots.
That behavior just forced people who didn’t realize there was a “problem” to take a side
I’m a boomer - but I can’t be the only one in that generation that didn’t have negative issues with gay people. I’m also NOT religious (despite 16 years of Catholic school). In fact, my being an atheist is BECAUSE I went to religious school.
So, your assessment is essentially correct. I was just ahead of the times.
Frankly, I didn’t think Marriage Equality would happen in my lifetime. I’m VERY glad I was wrong about that.
WOW. Where was this? When I’ve seen them they were white men in their 20’s - 60’s, sometimes a woman accompanying with a smaller sign. In my area it’s always the same few people who carry the same blown up photo signs to every major event.
I’m sorry you had to go through that. Seems very appropriate to have channeled your rage in their direction. I hope it helped you if not them.
In Toronto, Ontario. I usually see groups that are one or two grown-ups and a bunch of teenagers (to be fair, maybe they are 20, 20-year-olds look like kids to me these days), sometimes the grownups aren’t there. I think in some places there is a natural demographic of anti-abortion people to draw on, but around here it’s more about charismatic assholes recruiting disaffected youth.
I did learn this in Alberta, while rabble rousing among what I presumed were left winged activists when I brought this up. I was surprised at the reaction. Almost a taboo / not universally supported in circles where choice would be the only defensible position in the U.S. But generationally, is there a swing toward fundamentalism? Do these same people (still) want to missionise the first nation peoples?
I think downtown Calgary and downtown Toronto probably have more in common than many Canadians would guess, but generally Alberta culture and Ontario culture have a pretty big gulf between them.
I don’t think there is a generational swing towards fundamentalism, certainly not in Toronto. I think the kids I see at these protests are rebelling, and abortion is a thing to rebel against because it’s broadly accepted. Like most teenagers, they are probably just trying to find a place in the world / trying to get laid.
