Conflicts on moral issues

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AbstractThis chapter provides a comprehensive historical background to one of the main arguments discussed in this volume, namely, that the varying strength of religious voting over time reflects the pervasiveness of political tensions around traditional religious issues. The chapter overviews the conflicts on moral issues (abortion, gay rights, euthanasia, and stem research) in many European Western countries at the turn of century. The conflicts, however, manifested differently among Catholic, Protestant, and mixed religious countries. In a few cases, religious hierarchies were among the organizers; in others, they just followed. Religious organizations and institutions often intervened directly into the political debate asking lawmakers to inspire their decisions to non-negotiable principles. Conservative parties aligned rhetorically with these points of views or attempted to slow down the legislation. There have been also exceptions. This chapter interprets these conflicts from the point of view of a multilevel theory of secularization. The public opinion divides took place in countries highly secularized at the societal, organizational, and individual level, even in the Catholic countries.