To my understanding , somewhere around the late 70 s early 80 s there was a large group of Christians unhappy with the direction of the country . They formed a powerful movement called The Moral Majority which was a cause that the Republican Party took up to an extent , and in turn many of those Christians began to adopt all or almost all of the positions of the Republican party . The Democrat Party has generally been against the Republican Party and takes in those who don ' t agree with the Republicans and many of those who go to the Democrat Party have taken up most of the positions they hold , or else they just bear the positions they don ' t like because the positions they do like are more important to them . Of course , our 2 party system goes back further than that , but that gives you a general idea of the landscape as it is today . Now it seems that whatever position one party takes , the other party takes the opposite position and everyone associated with the party is pressured to conform if they value the things they do like about the party .