A History of Contention:Analyzing Parallels in the Rhetoric of the Religious Right :: Essays Papers

A History of ContentionAnalyzing Parallels in the Rhetoric of the Religious righteousness One hundred and fifty-six years ago, in 1848, when the first Womens Rights Convention was held in the quiet town of Seneca Falls, New York, the concept that women were entitled to in full enfranchised citizenship was a completely foreign concept. Ideas expressed and rights demanded at that convention, and at early feminist conventions organized throughout the next seventy years, were considered ridiculous. Suffrage rights, come apart rights, womens property rights, and married womens right to sign legal contracts, control income, or have legal guardianship of their childrenor themselves, for that matterwere reacted to with insensibility at best. Surprisingly, one of the most vocal opponents of womens rights was the conservative Church, who argued that womens place, according to Scripture, was in the domestic sphere to intrude into the public sphere was to vilify her natural role and endange r her mortal soul. However, religious conservatives defense of Biblical traditions did not end with womens rights if we look at the some of the most bellicose social issues of the past and present, some interesting parallels exist between the terms used by fundamentalist Christians to resist womens rights, abolition, abortion rights, and gay marriage. In each of these debates, the religious conservatives used Scriptural notions of what is natural to resist liberal social reform.The Religious Right and its devotees had been the primary protesters of womens suffrage since the conception of the movement. Biblically, they argued, womens roles have been established as subservient to man, second-class their God-given role is to be dependent, weak, diminutive, and obedient. The Reverend J. G. Holland asserted that woman was called into being for mans happiness and interest his helpmeet to turn back and watch his movements, to second his endeavors, to fight the hard battle of life behind him. Women were not to be trusted with important moral duties, due to the weakness inherent in their sex. For instance, through the story of Eves fall, Christianity has been founded on the doctrine that woman is weak and the source of human evil. According to the Church women were neither supposed to take such an active civil role as suffrage would promote, nor were they capable enough to partake in such a privileged and indwelling civic duty what didindeed what shouldGod-abiding women know about politics?It was on this religious basis that many women were actually opposed to womens rights.