Christian right

The Christian right, or more generally the religious right, is a broad label applied to a number of political and/or religious movements with particularly conservative or right wing views. While such elements are found in many nations, the term is most commonly applied to groups within the United States.

Christian right groups, as the name implies, consist primarily of Christians, many of them Fundamentalistss; some have been known to claim that their political positions are, or ought to be, the views of all Christians. In reality, American Christians hold a wide variety of political views.

Many elements of the Christian right sympathize with, support, and sometimes influence the United States Republican Party. For example, such support is thought to have provided considerable backing for the campaign of U.S. President George W. Bush.

Issues with which the Christian right is (or is thought to be) primarily concerned include opposition to the accessibility of abortion; legal rights of unborn children; opposition to much of the gay rights movement and the upholding of what they consider to be "traditional family values"; opposition to the right of all people gay and straight of being allowed to have anal sex or oral sex; and support for the presence of Christianity in the public sphere, as with school-sponsored prayer, government funding for religious charities and schools, and similar matters, regardless in many cases of the U.S. tradition of Separation of Church and State.

Contrast: Christian left