Religious Populism in Latin America. the New Face of Conservatism Against the Laicite and Sexual and Reproductive Rights.

The concept of populism in Latin America has moved through different forms and political experiences. From the charismatic leadership of the XX century who assumed the tutelage of the people against the oligarchy (Perón in Argentina and Velasco in Peru) to the populist discourses of the XXI century that strategically used the defense of the homeland against imperialism and the Latin American identity to the globalization (Chavez in Venezuela, Correa in Ecuador and Kirchner in Argentina).

But there is a type of populism that escapes the traditional political canons, it is the religious populism that has grown in Latin America to combat and contain the laicism of the National State and the advancement of sexual and reproductive rights. Such religious populism is driven by the Catholic Church and evangelical organizations to counteract what they call "moral relativism" which, according to them, come from foreign interests that try to destroy the people chosen by God.

Religious populism appeals to three discursive strategies. First, the people of God are defenseless before foreign ideologies such as the gender ideology that attempt to destroy the primary concepts of society as the family and the defense of life. Second, churches must be guardians of the elected people to counteract the moral relativism of sexual and reproductive rights. Third, laicism is a threat because promoting the rights of citizens generates an individualism that will destroy the collective identity of the Christian and Catholic nation.

This work shows how religious populism has been shaped as a discourse and leadership of the ethical and moral against the politics of diversity and how the individual freedom is managed.