Religious freedom, gay marriage, abortion, common core, immigration, "Obamacare," and the midterm elections led much of The Christian Post's politics coverage in 2014. Here, ranked by CP editors, are the top 10 Christian Post politics stories of the year.
10. The New Russian Aggression
Russian President Vladimir Putin revived memories of the old Soviet Union in 2014 as he led Russia to expand its territorial holdings. First he invaded the Crimean peninsula, a part of the Ukraine with a large Russian population and declared it part of Russia after a rigged referendum. Later, he led a full-scale invasion of the rest of Ukraine.
At the end of 2014, Russia is undergoing an economic crisis caused by low oil prices. This does not bode well for 2015. If history is a guide, Russia will become more, not less, agressive in response to the economic crisis.
9. Obamacare Takes Some Hits
The Affordable Care Act, also known as "Obamacare," continued to take some hits in 2014 after its disastrous rollout in 2013.
A number of government reports highlighted flaws and broken promises with the new law. One Congressional Budget Office report found that the law will lead to a loss of two million jobs. Another CBO report said the cost of the new law could not be determined, even though the nonpartisan agency initially declared the law would reduce the national debt by $120 billion. And the General Accounting Office found that the law does cover abortions, even though pro-lifers were promised it would not when the law was passed.
Depending on what happens next, however, the most significant news for Obamacare could be an appeals court decision saying that the law must be implemented as it was written, meaning that residents in states that do not set up their own exchanges are not eligible for subsidies.
The Obama administration argued in that case that the law was never intended to not allow subsidies for states that do not set up their own exchanges and the future of the law should not be determined by a "typing error." In July, however, a video surfaced of MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, an architect of Obamacare, explaining that the law was intentionally written that way to encourage the states to set up their own exchanges.
More revelations surfaced in November with the forthright Gruber explaining that the law intentionally lacked transparency in order to get it passed because the "stupid" American voters would not have wanted it if they knew what was in the law.
8. Common Core Opponents Gain Allies
Common Core opponents gained new allies in 2014. Three states, Indiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina, pulled out of Common Core. Additionally, Lousiana Governor Bobby Jindal announced his opposition to Common Core and is attempting to withdraw his state from the standards.
There was also growing opposition among teachers. A New York teachers union is seeking to withdraw support, the American Federation of Teachers convention had a spirited debate on the issue, and the president of the National Education Association said Common Core implementation was "botched" and in need of a "course correction."
7. Pro-Lifers Score Steady Gains
Abortion opponents made gains at both the state and national level in 2014. A new abortion law in Texas, passed in 2013, requiring basic health standards for abortion clinics, went into effect and led to the closing of 20 abortion clinics, before the U.S. Supreme Court delayed further implementation of the law pending court review.
Pro-lifers also outperformed pro-choicers in the midterm elections. The Democrats' "war on women" theme was a failure. Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colorado, lost his seat after being dubbed "Mark Uterus" for running a one issue, pro-abortion, campaign, and Texas state Senator Wendi Davis, who gained national prominence for opposing the new Texas abortion law, lost her race for Texas governor by a whopping 20 percentage points. A number of Republicans won, on the other hand, while being outspoken pro-lifers.
6. House Republicans Fail to Pass Immigration Bills, Obama Issues Executive Memo
House Republican leaders appeared poised to pass immigration reform at the beginning of 2014. In January, they announced a set of principles, including a path to legal status, that they would pursue. A week later, however, Speaker of the House John Boehner announced he would not be able pass immigration reform because too many in his caucus did not trust President Obama to implement the reforms if they became law.
The Evangelical Immigration Table continued to call for a reform of the current immigration system. In June, it released a documentary, "The Stranger," which was designed to put a human face on the difficulties caused by the current system.
Shortly after the midterm elections, Obama announced he would implement reforms through an executive memo that provided a temporary legal status for up to five million unauthorized immigrants. The move was highly controversial with some Republicans calling it an unconstitutional use of executive power. The move also split the EIT. Some EIT leaders praised the move while others complained that it would make passage of immigration reform more difficult.
5. Populism on the Rise in Both Parties
A group of conservative thinkers continued to implore Republicans to fight against the cronyism that privileges the rich and to become champions of the poor. A two-part CP analysis last year (here and here) referred to them as the "new populists." The populist message appeared to be gaining ground in 2014 with Republicans making an effort to end the corporate-welfare fueled Export-Import Bank, and House Majority Leader Eric Cantor's loss to David Brat in his primary election. At the same time, there appears to be a greater interest in a populist message among liberals, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., becoming their standard bearer. Warren gave a fiery speech on the Senate floor this month, decrying the cronyism in the budget bill negotiated by party leaders. Opponents of that bill tended to be populists in both parties.
4. Republicans Win Big in the Midterms
Republicans won big in the 2014 midterm elections, winning more seats in the U.S. House, gaining control of the U.S. Senate, and winning control of 68 of 98 partisan state houses, the highest in the history of the Republican Party.
3. Racial Tension in America
Reactions to the deaths of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, and Eric Garner in Long Island, New York, and to the grand jury decisions not to bring the officers responsible for those deaths to trial, highlighted the racial tension that continues to plague the United States. The decisions were folllowed by both peaceful demonstrations and riots, and a national discussion about policing and racism.
2. State Marriage Laws Struck Down, Supreme Court Declines to Review
A number of federal judges declared state marriage laws and constitutional amendments a violation of the U.S. Constitution in 2014, bringing the total number of states where marriage has been redefined to include same-sex couples to 35, with cases pending in another 10 states.
Parties from both sides of the debate asked, and expected, the U.S. Supreme Court take up the issue of whether 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution (passed after the Civil War to provide equal protection of the laws to former slaves) requires states to redefine marriage.
To the astonishment of court watchers, the Court declined to review that question in October, which left in place lower court decisions striking down marriage laws.
1. Religious Freedom Versus Sexual Immorality
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act was passed unanimously in the House, 97-3 in the Senate and signed by President Bill Clinton in 1993. At a Nov. 2013 event marking the 20 year anniversary of RFRA, some of the speakers predicted the debate that would become CP's number one politics story for 2014.
"The biggest problem for religious liberty in our time is deep disagreement over sexual immorality," said Doug Laycock, professor of law and religious studies at the University of Virginia School of Law. "Abortion, contraception, emergency contraception, sterilization ... gay rights and same-sex marriage, are dividing the country and poisoning the debate over religious liberty."
After the New Mexico Supreme Court declared that a wedding photographer could be punished for refusing to photograph a same-sex wedding, legislators in Arizona and other states sought to strengthen or add a state-level RFRA to clarify the intent of the law. The Arizona bill, in particular, became a national debate. Opponents and most of the media falsely claimed that the bill would allow businesses to deny public accomodations to gays.
There was also a debate over whether family-owned businesses and religious organizations can be required to pay for birth control or drugs that could cause an abortion if those products are in opposition to their religious views. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled against Obamacare's birth control mandate and in favor of Hobby Lobby. RFRA, the Court said, requires the government to provide an exemption to the mandate for closely-held corporations with a religious objection.
Some gays right's groups saw the Hobby Lobby decision as a threat. They withdrew support for the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which passed last year in the U.S. Senate. The groups had supported ENDA, which would add sexual orientation and gender identity to the list of categories that businesses would not be able to discriminate against, but they dropped their support for the bill because it contained a religious exemption and the Court's support for religious freedom was viewed as problematic.
President Barack Obama would later issue an ENDA-like executive order for government contractors that dis not include a religious exemption, though a religious hiring exception was left in place.