God, guns and gays

The phrase God, guns and gays describes the focus on social issues as political priorities for a significant number of right wing voters in the United States. The term is also used by analysts who argue that in the voting booth, socially conservative concerns allegedly displace economic concerns, and that white working-class voters are moving to the right when their economic concerns are ignored. [1]

Support for religious policy, or opposition to secularising forces, opposition to gun control, and opposition to same-sex marriage or other LGBT civil rights concerns have formed useful "wedge issues" in the past, although support for same-sex marriage seems to be growing rapidly, thus undercutting the use of it as a wedge issue.

The phrase originated as part of Oklahoma Senator Jim Inhofe's 1994 campaign.[2]

References
  1. Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas is probably the best-known instance of this argument.
  2. Freshmen: What Happened to the Republican Revolution?. Linda Killian. 1999.
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