James Taranto roots for the "religious right"

James Taranto, editor of OpinionJournal.com, states in a May 5th editorial: "I am not a Christian, or even a religious believer, and my opinions on social issues are decidedly middle-of-the-road."

He then asks: "So why do I find myself rooting for the 'religious right'? I suppose it is because I am put off by self-righteousness, closed-mindedness, and contempt for democracy and pluralism--all of which characterize the opposition to the religious right."

Ame--er, way to go, James. Preac--ahem, lay it on the line. Taranto continues:

One can disagree with religious conservatives on abortion, gay rights, school prayer, creationism and any number of other issues, and still recognize that they have good reason to feel disfranchised. This isn't the same as the oft-heard complaint of "anti-Christian bigotry," which is at best imprecise, since American Christians are all over the map politically. But those who hold traditionalist views have been shut out of the democratic process by a series of court decisions that, based on constitutional reasoning ranging from plausible to ludicrous, declared the preferred policies of the secular left the law of the land.

Righto. Exactly so. Taranto concludes:

Curiously, while secular liberals underestimate the intellectual seriousness of the religious right, they also overestimate its uniformity and ambition. The hysterical talk about an incipient "theocracy"--as if that is what America was before 1963, when the Supreme Court banned prayer in public schools--is either utterly cynical or staggeringly naive.

Those are apt words: hysterical, cynical, and naive. And don't forget "angry" and "bigoted." More to follow in months and years to come, I'm sure.