I'm not entirely knowledgeable on the subject, but I have heard mentions of churches being on the losing end of politics.

I'm not quite sure what you're getting at. What do you mean by "rational authority?"

i don't understand

i second what bibby said

I mean, rational-legal authority, which pertains to government leadership.

The media has been saying that the religious-right has been losing its lobbying influence.

I am not sure if that is what you are referring to but that has been a narrative for the last year or two.

The legalization of gay marriage and medical weed are two of the things that are cited as proof.

This is a very broad topic, but if I understand your question correctly, here's my take:

The social influence of American churches has generally declined in recent years. They've struggled to retain fickle teenagers, who are more interested in things that glow in the dark than in sitting in a pew for an hour or two, and as many large cities have become more diverse, it's become harder for churches (many of which are culturally homogenous) to appeal to the new people moving to the area (such as immigrants and military families). This is an incredibly complicated issue that's hard to distill into a single paragraph, but that's the way it's been in Jacksonville.

In the United States, the most influential religious denominations tend to be conservative, and the more conservative political party lost ground in the second half of the previous decade. Politics is highly cyclical, though, and the two parties that have held nearly every major office for the past 150 years tend to take turns making blunders.

On a higher level, the interests of government and religion sometimes intersect, and sometimes they conflict. Both religious and political leaders tend to favor the status quo (including those on the left wing of the political spectrum), often giving them a shared interest in social issues. In those cases, rulers often view religion as a tool to be managed or manipulated to serve their own ends, even when they don't believe in - or live by - the church's espoused values. On the other hand, religion answers to a higher King than earthly rulers, and churches often voice their opposition to the vices and follies of government. Many rulers do not take kindly to criticism, and they try to do everything in their power to extinguish dissenting voices.