It's rare in the UK - except for the Paisleyites of Northern Ireland. However, NO one, wherever they live, should be complacent about these issues.
In the last election, the Tories won in my constituency by 176 votes, at least in part because of a smear campaign by the Rev Lynda Rose, the local representative of the anti-abortion 'Life' organization, who attacked him as 'Dr Death' for his 'support' for euthanasia and abortion; and similar attacks in the wider media, especially by Cristina Odone. There are other reasons - neither he nor the local party campaigned very assiduously; and he was a left-leaning LibDem, a species that has essentially gone the way of the dinosaurs. Nevertheless these vile smear campaigns, by which we were blindsided (you don't expect such things here!) certainly contributed very significantly; and certainly resulted in triumphant gloating, and support for repeating such actions elsewhere, by our very own Christian-Righties:
Immediately:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/georgepitcher/100038685/the-best-result-of-the-election-lets-rejoice-that-lib-dem-evan-harris-has-lost-his-seat/
And some time later, by Ann Widdecombe and Cristina Odone:
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/cristinaodone/100103496/abortion-vote-the-fate-of-dr-evan-harris-should-be-a-warning-to-mps-who-ignore-their-christian-voters/
It was enough to make one want to dig a tunnel to Australia... Except that their conservative leader is Tony Abbott, the 'Mad Monk' and a convinced Christian-Rightie type; and just after our election, he fortunately failed to become Prime Minister - but by ONE SINGLE parliamentary seat! And that is, like Britain, a pretty secular country.
Of course, we are nothing like America with regard to the influence of the uglier sort of religion. Not only are we much more secular, but the proportion of Christian Left to Christian Right is much higher here than it seems to be in America. But no one should ever be as complacent as I once was.
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