Political news of late has been dominated by three people - Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders. They've certainly provided good copy, but there are some other things going on politically that you might not have heard about.

Let's consider Kentucky, for example. The commonwealth has been the site of mostly bad news lately. Ken Ham's "Ark Park" is getting taxpayer incentives, and the state's Republican governor, Matt Bevin, is thrilled.

Every few years, a political pundit comes along and proclaims that the Religious Right is dead or on the verge of dying. I started working at Americans United in 1987 and have heard it proclaimed many times over nearly three decades.

The latest theory goes like this: Donald Trump is such a divisive figure that he has split the Religious Right. The movement won't recover from his candidacy.

Even as Donald Trump seeks to tack to the center, and leave behind his earlier, wildly controversial statements on Hispanics and Muslims, mounting evidence concerning the Trump campaign's ties to racist white nationalists threatens to undermine Trump's re-branding effort.

Media has recently showcased a Trump campaign link to a director of the American Freedom Party (AFP), William D. Johnson, whom the Trump effort had picked as a delegate in the upcoming California primary. Johnson's AFP has run racist pro-Trump robocalls in at least six primary and caucus states.

But the Trump for president effort has more direct, high-level contact with another AFP director, James Edwards - whom the Trump campaign vetted for VIP press credentials in late February. Edwards then broadcast his Political Cesspool radio show live from a Trump rally in Memphis. On March 1, 2016, Edwards co-hosted a radio show featuring a 20-minute appearance by Donald Trump Jr.

On the show, Edwards suggested that the Trump, Jr. radio show appearance could light up his white nationalist movement "like Napalm on a grassroots blaze".

Those of us who write about the Religious Right and related matters often find ourselves wishing that we were wrong. Back in 2011 we faced one of those times. As journalist Jodi Jacobson put it, "The president has presided over the greatest erosion to women's reproductive health and rights in the past 30 years, and a continuing degradation of our rights at the state level." The neglect to women's reproductive freedom and access to reproductive health services will be a lasting legacy of this president. There are many reasons for this of course, but it is helpful to see how we got here, and what lessons we have learned and which one's we haven't. That is a project for another day, but this post from five years ago is a good place to begin to consider what happened and why. -- FC

One of the consequences of the creeping Religious Rightism in the Democratic Party has been the steady erosion of reproductive rights and access to reproductive health care for women, especially abortion care.  

Two items in the news underscore the situation. A special issue of Conscience  magazine questions whether the Obama administration's policies can be considered prochoice.  And an article in the Los Angeles Times, outlining the current "torrent" of draconian antiabortion legislation being proposed, and sometimes enacted in the states.  The latter is, of course, but an indicator of the still-cresting wave of state level anti-abortion public policy work in the generation since the Casey decision of the Supreme Court, which allowed considerable, medically unnecessary, state regulation of access to abortion care.

Journalist Jodie Jacobson, writing in Conscience, reviews the highlights of Obama's prochoice 2008 campaign stances and his record so far as president and concludes,

"The president has presided over the greatest erosion to women's reproductive health and rights in the past 30 years, and a continuing degradation of our rights at the state level."

Word broke late Friday night that Roy Moore, chief justice of the Alabama Supreme Court, may be on the verge of losing his job - again.

When we last left the Ayatollah of Alabama, he was throwing a hissy-fit over marriage equality. That mean old U.S. Supreme Court had issued a ruling that had the effect of making marriage equality the law in all 50 states. Moore, channeling his inner Jefferson Davis, decided to nullify the decision.

Officials in Kentucky have apparently decided that they're willing to endure a large amount of embarrassment if it will bring some mediocre jobs to the state.

Media outlets reported recently that the state will spend $10 million on road improvements near the infamous "Ark Park," a creationist attraction being erected in Williamstown by Ken Ham.

Since 2013 (and with growing interest, especially since Ted Cruz mounted his bid for the presidency), various authors have sought to address Cruz' ties to the diffuse but widespread movement known as Dominionism.

But most of these various treatments seem to share common flaws - they typically focus on a few details but miss the extensive range of evidence tying Ted Cruz and his campaign to dominionism and its advocates. They also typically neglect to answer an obvious question - why is dominionism a bad thing ? Isn't it just a healthy expression of Christian engagement in the democratic process ?

In the piece below, I've tried to address those shortcomings and also contextualize dominionism a bit.

As the 2016 presidential primary season moves into the media savvy states of New York (April 19) and California (June 7) a question is beginning to loom large over the candidacy of Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).  People are understandably wondering how his apparent Seven Mountains Dominionism would affect his policy decisions as president.  But in fairness, and not every leader or adherent of Seven Mountains Dominionism, necessarily believes exactly the same thing.  But there is one question that would go a long way to helping us all sort this out:  Do you believe yourself to be a divinely appointed king?

Correction Sent to Christianity Today, April 11, 2016

Regarding the article:
"Stop Calling Ted Cruz a Dominionist:
The Christian candidate's faith influences his platform, but not in the ways most critics assume."

by Robert Gagnon and Edith Humphrey, April 6, 2016

http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2016/april-web-only/stop-call ing-ted-cruz-dominionist.html?start=1

I have discussed this matter with Sara Diamond and she refutes the claim that she ever used the term "dominionism," and it does not appear in her book Spiritual Warfare.

See pages 138 and 238 for her discussion of "Dominion Theology" as facilitating the politicization of the Christian Right.

Diamond refers to this on page 138 as "Dominion Hegemony."

Fred Clarkson and I coined the term "Dominionism" to refer to the politicization of the Christian Right as influenced by Dominion Theology such as in the Christian Reconstructionist movement. See: http://www.talk2action.org/story/2011/8/31/17047/5683/Front_Page/ How_We_Coined_the_term_quot_Dominionism_quot_ Sincerely, -Chip Berlet

Bob Jones University has a rich history.  It was a launching pad for GOP Presidential candidates until George W. Bush apologized for the visit.  The new launching pad appears to be Liberty University.  Liberty has strong links to Bob Jones.  The school is again a focal point for church/state issues and its connection in American history will certainly make it a player in the future regarding legal battles over 501c3.

Over the weekend, a movie called "God's Not Dead 2" opened in theaters around the nation. I haven't seen the film and don't intend to -- I'm not going to give them my money, and if I'm going to watch a cheesy movie, I prefer one featuring rubber monsters battling for supremacy in Tokyo -- but I've been reading about it online.

Despite the "2" in its title, the film isn't really a sequel. It's a follow-up to an earlier movie. Both releases feature has-been and never-been actors and represent a fairly new genre in Christian filmmaking - call it the cinema of persecution.

The National Catholic Reporter recently reported  that a group of fifty conservative Catholics led by Catholic neocon Robert P. George and former Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli have endorsed Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) for president, as the Republican alternative to Donald Trump.

While it may seem laudable that this group is rallying Catholics away from a far-right demagogue, it might be a less laudable choice than meets the eye for some, considering that their alternative may have a religious desire to establish an Evangelical theocracy.