Sarah Palin on the stump with John McCain, with Kenyan minister John Muthee and as speaker at the Master's Commission graduation ceremony. Photos: WDCpix.com, YouTube, Wasilla Assembly of God Church

Sarah Palin on the stump with John McCain, with Kenyan minister John Muthee and as speaker at the Master's Commission graduation ceremony. Photos: WDCpix.com, YouTube, Wasilla Assembly of God Church

The religious right had a bad day on Tuesday. The election of Barack Obama and Democratic gains in the U.S. Senate and House put support for religious right policies further out of reach, and there’s plenty of blame to go around. Some say Republican John McCain coddled Obama on the issues, and others point to President Bush’s noncommittal attitude for issues the religious right cares about the most: gay marriage and abortion. The one bit of post-election hope seems to be the ascension of Sarah Palin as a religious right figurehead.

Here’s which way the fingers are pointing:

It was McCain’s fault.

“McCain gave Obama the free pass of the century by NOT talking about the Illinois Senator’s radical anti-DOMA (Defense of Marriage Act) plan, his campaign promise to open up the military to homosexuality, and Obama’s pro-abortion extremism,” said Peter Labarbera of Americans for Truth About Homosexuality. “Most Americans have no idea how extreme Obama is on abortion and homosexuality, due to Obama’s clever obfuscations and McCain’s refusal to educate Americans on the Democratic candidate’s social record.”

LaBarbera offers this solution: “The GOP must return to its pro-family roots if it wants to start winning again.”

It was Bush’s fault.
“The conservative movement knows how to rise from the ashes, and we need to pick up the pieces of the movement, which was so badly dismantled and put in disarray by the George W. Bush administration. But we can do it. And we’ve got to get started immediately,” said Phyllis Schlafly of the Eagle Forum. “The disarray of the conservative movement is the fault of George W. Bush and his advisor Karl Rove. I guess it turned out that he was not a conservative after all. He was a big government, big spending, globalist, ‘New World Order’-type of Republican.”

Schlafly offers this solution: “Sarah Palin is certainly a rising star – she was a breath of fresh air, and a lot of excitement to the conservative movement. I think she is a genuine conservative.”

The Southern Baptist Convention’s Richard Land agrees that Palin could take the mantle as the face of the religious right. “I think there are several contestants for it,” Land told One News Now, a Christian news outlet affiliated with the American Family Association. “Sarah Palin is certainly going to be a prominent one. Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Mitch McConnell — who just won re-election [in Kentucky] — [and] Bobby Jindal from Louisiana.”

Land echoed LaBarbera’s call to make the GOP more socially conservative. “I think that we need to stay consistent with our message of family values and the sanctity of human life — and we need to find attractive and articulate candidates who will go out and make those cases.”

Some in the movement are frightened that they are not in the driver’s seat any longer. “We are going to see, I think, unprecedented attacks against our faith through measures like the hate crimes [legislation] to the Employment Non-Discrimination Act,” said Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. “We’re going to see attacks on innocent human life through the Freedom of Choice Act, trying to erase all the gains that have been made in the pro-life movement. And I think even our freedoms are going to come under attack.”

Perkin’s is to join other members of the religious right, fiscal conservatives and GOP insiders Thursday for an emergency strategy meeting, Politico reports. Grover Norquist of Americans for Tax Reform and Leonard Leo of the Federalist Society are also expected to attend.

Religious right watchers say that while the chips may be down for the religious right at the federal level, voters are sure to see their candidates crop up at the state and local level.

“The Religious Right is not dead,” said the Rev. Barry Lynn of Americans United for Separation of Church and State, “but I’m happy that most Americans seem very wary of the movement’s reckless merger of religion and politics. Those of us who value church-state separation must remain on the alert to counter the Religious Right’s next gambit.”

He said they are down but not out. “James Dobson, Tony Perkins, Richard Land and Company did everything but declare Obama the Antichrist,” said Lynn. “In the end, they kept their own flock in line, but the majority of Americans were unmoved. On Jan. 20, the Religious Right’s eight-year run of the White House will come to a screeching halt.”