Are Americans becoming less religious? While church affiliation is probably declining, don't expect the atheist revolution anytime soon:

Over one half (63 percent, to be exact) of young Americans 18-29 years old now believe in the notion that invisible, non-corporeal entities called "demons" can take partial or total control of human beings, revealed an October 2012 Public Policy Polling survey that also showed this belief isn't declining among the American population generally; it's growing.

Louis Gohmert is a member of the large Baptist Church in Tyler known as Green Acres.  Steve Stockman claims identity with Sagemont Church in a Houston suburb.  Ted  Cruz is a member of Second Baptist in Houston. All three are regional Tea Party candidates.

When the Religious Right started to become a prominent force in American politics in the late 1970s, its advocates had a major impact on the country's largest Protestant denomination: the Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).

Younger readers may be surprised to read that the SBC, which claims 16 million members, used to be fairly moderate on social issues. It strongly supported the separation of church and state, citing historical Baptist leaders like John Leland and Isaac Backus.

[update: see related stories at end of article]

Last Saturday at a heated local Democratic Party meeting near Vallejo, CA, Vallejo Independent editor Marc Garman addressed the local California Democratic Party's endorsement of pastor Summers,

"This is a human rights issue. Last year Anthony Summers made a movie with a guy named Ed Silvoso - who preaches that gay people are infested with demons, demons which need to be driven out... It's as simple as this - you have endorsed a candidate who has chosen to affiliate himself with a known hate group."

At the Religious Right's recent Values Voter Summit, Alabama Attorney General Luther Strange talked about how far-right attorneys general can undermine progressive policies in the states and promote extreme conservatism.

Strange might want to consult with a guy name Phill Kline before going too far with that.

Pity the poor pundits who have staked their professional reputations on dominionism denial.  Like their analogues in the climate denial industry, and the media conveyor belts of denialist opinion, we have seen the likes of Ross Douthat, Lisa Miller, and Michael Gerson variously claim that dominionism is a myth; its significance is wildly exaggerated; or that those of us who write about it are trying to paint all evangelicals with a broad brush.  

The Centers for Disease Control may need to launch an epidemiological investigation should members of this august company become disoriented in the face of actual journalism.  Fortunately, we can save the CDC the taxpayer dimes it would take to learn what those in the throes of a contemporary strain of the vapors already know: One of their own, veteran religion writer and co-founder of BeliefNet Deborah Caldwell has authored a story at The Huffington Post that attributes the shutdown of the federal government (at least in part) to Christian Reconstructionism -- AKA dominionism.  

But before we discuss this remarkable development, let's do a quick look back:

[note: in response to criticism that accused me of proposing that neo-voucher schemes are bad simply because their conceptual lineage traces to racist privatization schemes of the 1950s, I have rewritten my story introduction (see footnote #1 for my original) and have also added substantial story material to illustrate that the politicized Christian right, which many neo-voucher funded Christian fundamentalist private schools are part of, arose in part from a pro-segregationist, racist backlash - anger over a Carter Administration decision to enforce a 1971 Supreme Court decision that withdrew the tax-exempt status of racially discriminatory private schools.]

On September 6, 2013, the Family Research Council (FRC) launched a petition to "Protect Sergeant Phillip Monk from Air Force Court Martial." Incredibly, just over a month later, on October 12, the very same organization paraded Sergeant Monk out at its Values Voter Summit, a political event in which the participation of an active duty service member is strictly prohibited by military regulations, the violation of which could subject Sergeant Monk to punishment by ... um ... court-martial.

If you're not familiar with the story of Phillip Monk, he's the Air Force Senior Master Sergeant who's become the poster boy for the fundamentalist Christians who are still throwing a hissy fit over the repeal of 'Don't ask, don't tell' -- a fit that has gotten even hissier since the overturning of DOMA.

In the two years since the repeal of DADT, none of the dire predictions pushed by the anti-gay fundamentalist crowd that this would be the end of civilization as we know it have come true, so they're now having to invent problems in order to be able to say "we told you so." So, what they're now claiming is that there is a "reverse don't ask, don't tell" in the military, with Christian service members having to be "in the closet." Seriously, this is what SMSgt. Monk said to Todd Starnes of Fox News: "Christians have to go into the closet. ... We are being robbed of our dignity and respect. We can't be who we are."

If the names of the organizations and funders gearing up for the next big battle in California's Culture Wars sound familiar, that's because they are. In addition to the campaign's chief strategist, many of the same organizations and funders that came together to sponsor Proposition 8 five years ago, are teaming up for a signature gathering campaign to place an initiative on the November 2014 ballot that would overturn a bill providing protections for transgender public school students, which was recently signed into law by Governor Jerry Brown.

The law, which will go into effect January 1, says schools must allow transgender students to use the bathrooms and locker rooms and play on sports teams that match their gender identification.

[update: for some additional perspective, see my story The Tea Party Plan To Shatter the American Republic, The Far-Right Christian Movement Driving the Debt Default by Deborah Caldwell and my story Ted Cruz Worked With Religious Right Founder Paul Weyrich, To Elect George W. Bush]

"The pastor [Huch] referred to Proverbs 13:22, a little while ago, which says that the wealth of the wicked is stored for the righteous. And it is through the kings, anointed to take dominion, that that transfer of wealth is going to occur." - Rafael Cruz, August 26, 2012

In a sermon last year at an Irving, Texas, megachurch that helped elect Ted Cruz to the United States Senate, Cruz' father Rafael Cruz indicated that his son was among the evangelical Christians who are anointed as "kings" to take control of all sectors of society, an agenda commonly referred to as the "Seven Mountains" mandate, and "bring the spoils of war to the priests", thus helping to bring about a prophesied "great transfer of wealth", from the "wicked" to righteous gentile believers.

On Monday my colleague Simon Brown offered some thoughts on the Religious Right's  Values Voter Summit, which he attended this weekend.

I was there for part of it as well. One thing that struck me was the constant use of the word "tyranny." To supporters of the Religious Right, any attempt to stop them from running the lives of others or expecting them to obey the same laws that the rest of us must follow is tyranny.

In recent years we have seen the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops become not only increasingly political, but increasingly politically aggressive. Led by Conference president, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York, many bishops have even joined in common cause with the leaders of the Protestant evangelical Christian Right in ways that would have been unthinkable not long ago.  What's more, the generation of bishops appointed by Popes John Paul II and Benedict, have been aggressive in their enforcement of orthodoxy and shutting down of dissent and of reasoned discussion and debate, especially at church-controlled universities.

The spectacle of Roman Catholic leaders denouncing the 2009 decision of the University of Notre Dame to give president Barack Obama an honorary degree and allowing him to speak, illustrated just how extreme the bishops had become. The president ultimately received his honorary doctorate and was allowed to speak -- but the point had been made.

It was not always like this.   There was a time, for example, when Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo of New York spoke to an audience at Notre Dame -- and ultimately to the nation -- and said:  

The American people need no course in philosophy or political science or church history to know that God should not be made into a celestial party chairman.