The temperance movement had some very prominent religious underpinnings (perhaps most notably the WCTU), but National Prohibition remained a sore topic among a diversity of religious groups, including Catholics, Jews and German Lutherans, who tended more toward the 'wet' side of the debate. This was not entirely about alcohol or concepts of vice, though. Ethnic and religious groups such as these, enduring varying amounts of hostile sentiment in America at the time, feared escalating establishment-borne scrutiny and persecution predicated on broad policing of the 18th Amendment. Lutherans seemed further incensed by the muddling of gospel with political prohibition rhetoric and steadfastly resisted marching to the beat with Baptists, Methodists, and other largely 'dry' Protestant groups. They didn't encourage unlawful rebellion, of course, but a number of ecclesiastics penned anti-prohibition diatribes more colorful and fiery than I could manage to represent here.
