Culture Wars

Overview

Boldly stated and passionately supported, this argument against religious influence on the American government and legal system analyzes the impact that religion has on culture in the United States. The book makes the claim that many laws based on religious beliefs, specifically theology promoted in the Middle Ages, are misattributed as long-standing social values and that changing the theology itself threatens the religious institution supporting it—igniting a cultural war engulfed in fear and resulting in political dysfunction. It reveals that from sexuality to family planning to the tax system, religious doctrines direct American life without accounting for difference. Castle provides strategies for overcoming the imposition of religious views and demonstrates the value in standing up for a secular nation where morality is not tied to one particular religious group. This revised and expanded edition provides additional information on the origins and activities of the religious right, and its assault on women's, reproductive, and LGBT rights. It analyzes the Trump Administration's threat to those rights, and it provides case studies of the havoc religious rightists have wrought in states they control, focusing on Mike Pence's Indiana and Sam Brownback's Kansas.

Reviews

"It is impossible not to admire the author's breadth of knowledge, her passion, and her clear-headed, strong convictions." —Arvonne Fraser, former U.S. ambassador to the UN Commission on the Status of Women

Author Biography

Marie Alena Castle is a political activist and the communications director for Atheists for Human Rights. In 2008, the Minnesota Democratic party gave her its "Woman of Distinction." She lives in Minneapolis, Minnesota.