Capital punishment Support for the death penalty has divided Catholics and Evangelical Protestants within the Christian Right: The Roman Catholic Church is against
capital punishment, while the
Southern Baptist Convention and the
Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod support it. Certain conservative Catholics, however, have supported the death penalty. The
Moral Majority made strong support for capital punishment part of its
socially conservative agenda. Surveys have found that Evangelical Protestants are more likely than any other American religious group to favor the death penalty.
Education The Christian right strongly advocates for a system of educational choice, using a system of
school vouchers, instead of public education. Vouchers would be government funded and could be redeemed for "a specified maximum sum per child per years if spent on approved educational services". This method would allow parents to determine which school their child attends while relieving the economic burden associated with private schools. The concept is popular among constituents of church-related schools, including those affiliated with Evangelical Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism.
Evolution The Protestant members of the Christian right in the United States generally promote the teaching of
creationism and
intelligent design as opposed to, or alongside, biological evolution. Some supporters of the Christian right have opposed the teaching of evolution in the past, but they did not have the ability to stop it being taught in public schools as was done during the
Scopes Trial in
Dayton, Tennessee, in which a science teacher went on trial for teaching about the subject of evolution in a public school. Other "Christian right organizations supported the teaching of creationism, along with evolution, in public schools", specifically promoting
theistic evolution (also known as evolutionary creationism) in which God is regarded as the originator of the process. The Discovery Institute, through their intelligent design initiative called the
Center for Science and Culture, has endorsed the
teach the controversy approach. According to its proponents, such an approach would ensure that both the strengths and weaknesses of evolutionary theory were discussed in the curriculum. This tactic was criticized by Judge
John E. Jones III in
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, describing it as "at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard." The overwhelming majority of scientific research, both in the United States and elsewhere, has concluded that the theory of evolution, using the
technical definition of the word theory, is the only viable explanation of the development of life, and an overwhelming majority of biologists strongly support its presentation in public school science classes. Outside the United States, as well as among American Catholics and Mainline Protestants, Christian conservatives have generally come to
accept the theory of evolution.
Sex education Some Christian groups advocate for the removal of sex education literature from public schools, for parental opt-out of comprehensive sex education, or for
abstinence-only sex education.
Sam Harris has written that thirty percent of America's sex-education programs are abstinence based and ineffective.
Schooling The Christian right promotes
homeschooling and private schooling as a valid alternative to public education for parents who object to the content being taught at school. The percentage of children being homeschooled rose from 1.7% of the student population in 1999 to 2.2% in 2003, and much of this increase has been attributed to the desire to incorporate Christian teachings into the curriculum. In 2003, 72% of parents who homeschooled their children cited the ability to provide religious or moral instruction as the reason for removing their children from public schools. The
Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District case established that
creationism cannot be taught in public schools, and in response officials have increasingly appropriated public funds for
charter schools that teach curricula like
Accelerated Christian Education.
Sunday Sabbatarianism The Christian right is in favor of legislation that maintains and promotes
Sunday Sabbatarianism, such as
Sunday blue laws that forbid shopping and restrict the sale of alcohol on Sundays, which is the
Lord's Day in mainstream Christianity. It promotes conservative interpretations of the Bible as the basis for moral values and enforcing such values by legislation.
Evangelical Christians have generally supported
laissez-faire economic policies since the
New Deal era, while Catholics alternatively accept the Catholic Church's strong support for
labor unions.
Church and state relations The Christian right believes that
separation of church and state is not explicit in the American Constitution, believing instead that such separation is a creation of what it claims are activist judges in the judicial system. In the United States, the Christian right often supports their claims by stating that the country was "
founded by Christians as a Christian Nation." Members of the Christian right take the position that the
Establishment Clause bars the federal government from establishing or sponsoring a state church (e.g., the Church of England), but does not prevent the government from acknowledging religion. The Christian right points out that the term "separation of church and state" is derived from a letter written by Thomas Jefferson, not from the Constitution itself. Furthermore, the
Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF) takes the view that the concept of "separation of church and state" has been used by the
American Civil Liberties Union and its allies to inhibit public acknowledgment of Christianity and restrict the religious freedoms of Christians. Thus, Christian right leaders have argued that the Establishment Clause does not prohibit the display of religion in the public sphere. Leaders, therefore, believe that public institutions should be allowed, or even required, to display the
Ten Commandments. This interpretation has been repeatedly rejected by the courts, which have found that such displays violate the
Establishment Clause. Public officials though are prohibited from using their authority in which the primary effect is "advancing or prohibiting religion", according to the Lemon Supreme Court test, and there cannot be an "excessive entanglement with religion" and the government. Some, such as Bryan Fischer of the
American Family Association, argue that the First Amendment, which specifically restricts Congress, applies only to the Congress and not the states. This position rejects the
incorporation of the Bill of Rights. Generally, the Christian right supports the presence of religious institutions within government and the public sphere, and advocates for fewer restrictions on government funding for religious charities and schools. Both Catholics and Protestants, according to a 2005
Gallup study, have been supportive of
school prayer in public schools.
Economics Early American fundamentalists, such as
John R. Rice often favored
laissez-faire economics and were outspoken critics of the
New Deal and later the
Great Society. This tradition carried forward into the late 20th century, when
Reagan era Christian Right leaders helped merge social conservatism with
neoliberal economic policy. Organizations such as the Moral Majority aligned themselves with
supply-side tax cuts, deregulation, and globalization, even as religious rhetoric was used to frame economic recovery as a moral imperative In contemporary politics, this synthesis remains visible but has evolved in notable ways. Survey data show that White evangelical Protestants are among the strongest proponents of capitalism as a defining feature of American identity (
PRRI, 2019). At the same time, they have shown significant support for protectionist measures, including
tariffs under Donald Trump, with roughly two-thirds expressing support in 2025 and a continued majority backing Trump-era policies more broadly in 2026. This reflects a shift from earlier emphases on
Free-Trade toward a more nationalist economic posture.
Israel Many evangelical Protestant supporters of the religious right have strongly supported
Christian Zionism Some of them have linked Israel to
Biblical prophesies; for example, Ed McAteer, founder of the Moral Majority, said "I believe that we are seeing prophecy unfold so rapidly and dramatically and wonderfully and, without exaggerating, makes me breathless." This belief, an example of
dispensationalism, arises from the idea that the establishment of Israel is a prerequisite for the
Second Coming of Jesus, because it represents the Biblically prophesied
Gathering of Israel. A 2017 poll indicates that this belief is held by 80% of evangelicals, and that half of evangelicals consider it an important cause of their support for the state of Israel. However, other Protestant churches and Christian right ideologues have rejected a religious basis for Zionism and condemned the ideology.
Abortion and contraception Historically, large percentages of American
Catholics and
Evangelical Protestants oppose and have opposed abortion, believing that life begins at
conception and that abortion is murder. Therefore, those in the movement have worked toward the overturning of
Roe v. Wade (1973), and
Planned Parenthood v. Casey (1992). The Christian right has also supported incremental steps to make abortion less available. Such efforts include bans on
late-term abortion (including
intact dilation and extraction), prohibitions against Medicaid funding and other public funding for elective abortions, removal of taxpayer funding for
Planned Parenthood and other organizations that provide abortion services, legislation requiring
parental consent or notification for abortions performed on
minors, legal protections for unborn victims of violence,
legal protections for infants born alive following failed abortions, and bans on
abortifacient medications. The Christian right element in the Reagan coalition strongly supported him in 1980, in the belief that he would appoint Supreme Court justices to overturn
Roe v. Wade. They were astonished and dismayed when his first appointment was
Sandra Day O'Connor, whom they feared would tolerate abortion. They worked hard to defeat her confirmation but failed. The Christian right contends that morning-after pills such as
Plan B and
Ella are possible abortifacients, able to interfere with a
fertilized egg's
implantation in the
uterine wall. The labeling mandated by the U.S.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for Plan B and Ella state that they may interfere with implantation, but according to a June 2012,
The New York Times article, many scientists believe that they work only by interfering with
ovulation and are arguing to have the implantation language removed from product labels. The Christian right maintains that the chemical properties of morning-after pills make them abortifacients and that the politics of abortion is influencing scientific judgments. Jonathan Imbody of the
Christian Medical Association says he questions "whether ideological considerations are driving these decisions." in 2020. This court oversaw the landmark United States Supreme Court case ''
Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization'' in 2022. In May 2022,
Politico published a leaked draft majority opinion, written by Justice
Samuel Alito. It would overturn
Roe and
Casey by nullifying the specific privacy rights in question, eliminating federal involvement, and leaving the issue to be determined by the states. Through a statement made by the
Chief Justice of the United States,
John Roberts, the Court confirmed the document's authenticity but said that it was not a final decision or the Justice's final decision, which was expected by June or July. The decision was issued on June 24, 2022, ruling 6–3 to reverse the lower court rulings; a more narrow 5–4 ruling overturned
Roe and
Casey. The majority opinion stated that abortion was not a
constitutional right, and that states should have discretion in regulating abortion. The majority opinion, written by Alito, was substantially similar to the leaked draft. Chief Justice Roberts agreed with the judgment upholding the Mississippi law but did not join the majority in the opinion to overturn
Roe and
Casey.
Biotechnology Due to the Christian right's views regarding ethics and to an extent due to negative views of
eugenics common to most ideologies in North America, it has worked for the regulation and restriction of certain applications of
biotechnology. In particular, the Christian right opposes therapeutic and reproductive
human cloning, championing a 2005 United Nations ban on the practice, and human embryonic
stem cell research, which involves the extraction of one or more cells from a human embryo. The Christian right supports research with
adult stem cells,
amniotic stem cells, and
induced pluripotent stem cells which do not use cells from human embryos, as they view the harvesting of biological material from an embryo lacking the ability to give permission as an assault on a living being. The Christian right also opposes
euthanasia, and, in one highly publicized case, took an active role in seeking governmental intervention to prevent
Terri Schiavo from being deprived of nutrition and
hydration.
Opposition to drugs The Christian right has historically supported the
temperance movement, such as maintaining
Sunday blue laws, adding
alcohol packaging warning messages to bottles and limiting alcohol advertising. It has advocated for the
prohibition of drugs and has opposed efforts to legalize marijuana. However, the Roman Catholic Church in Canada is in support of
medical marijuana for therapeutic reasons.
Sex and sexuality The modern roots of the Christian right's views on
sexual matters were evident in the years 1950s–1960s, a period in which many
conservative Christians in the United States viewed sexual promiscuity as not only excessive, but in fact as a threat to their ideal vision of the country. Beginning in the 1970s, conservative Christian protests against promiscuity began to surface, largely as a reaction to the "
permissive Sixties" and changes in sexual behavior confirmed by
Roe v. Wade and the
LGBT rights movement. The Christian right proceeded to make sexuality issues a priority political cause. The group argued that gay people were "
recruiting" or "
molesting children" in order to make them gay. The Bryant campaign achieved success in repealing some city anti-discrimination laws, and proposed other citizen initiatives such as a
failed California ballot question designed to ban gay people or those who supported LGBT rights from holding public teaching jobs. Bryant's campaign attracted widespread opposition and
boycotts which put her out of business. From the late 1970s onwards, some
conservative Christian organizations such as the
Christian Broadcasting Network,
Focus on the Family,
Concerned Women for America, the
American Family Association, and the
Christian Coalition of America, along with right-wing Christian hate groups such as the
Westboro Baptist Church, have been outspoken against LGBT rights. The Christian right champions itself as the "self-appointed conscience of American society". During the 1980s, the movement was largely dismissed by political pundits and mainstream religious leaders as "a collection of buffoonish has-beens". Later, it re-emerged, better organized and more focused, taking firm positions against abortion, pornography, sexual deviancy, and extreme feminism. Beginning around the
first presidency of Donald Trump, Christian conservatives have largely refrained from engaging in debates about sexual morality. Influential Christian right organizations at the forefront of the anti-gay rights movement in the United States include Focus on the Family, Family Research Council, and the
Family Research Institute. Some members of the Christian right view
same-sex marriage as a central issue in the culture wars, more so than other gay rights issues and even more significantly than abortion. Other Christians have a more nuanced approach to the concept, Some theologians, like Joe Rigney in his book The Sin of Empathy, distinguish empathy from compassion: the former fully immerses in another's pain, potentially endorsing sin or falsehood to avoid seeming heartless. This view posits empathy as a tool for emotional manipulation, weaponized in culture wars over issues like abortion or LGBTQ+ rights, where it pressures affirmation of perceived wrongs. ==Criticism==