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Wayne Besen
PO Box 25491
Brooklyn, NY 11202
One has to look no further than Jeffersonville, Indiana to figure out how Republicans blew their recent hegemony in American politics. This Louisville suburb is where the former chairman of both the Clark County Republican Party and Young Republican National Federation pleaded guilty last week to criminal deviant conduct for performing oral sex on a man while he slept, following a house party.
This incident is the latest to underscore the rank hypocrisy within republican ranks. The party of Rev. Ted Haggard, Sen. Larry Craig, Rep. Mark Foley, and former Spokane mayor Jim West simply lost its moral authority as guardian of the good.
More than prurience, it is the warping of priorities where social conservatives damage the GOP. While the vast majority of Americans are worried about gas prices, the right wing gasbags are pushing the Republican Party to make gay marriage its top issue.
A May poll by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 49% of white evangelical Protestants view gay marriage as very important, up 10 points since last fall...Overwhelming majorities of Republicans (75%) and white evangelical Protestants (81%) oppose allowing gays to marry.
To win the general election, John McCain will need to win a sizable majority of Independent voters. He has attempted to reach out to moderates by appearing on Ellen DeGeneres' daytime talk show and by not rallying to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage in California.
However, you can be sure that the Religious Right will first exhort and then extort the GOP nominee into championing their extreme positions. They are already responsible for tarnishing his once shining brand. I can't tell you how many gay people I meet who pine for the "straight talking" McCain of 2000, who called the Revs. Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson "agents of intolerance." This time, they vow to vote for Obama.
The McCain of 2008 has spent eight years cozying up to theocrats and President Bush. This has severely damaged his image and nearly cost him victory in the primaries. Indeed, the only reason he pulled out his unlikely victory was because Mitt Romney was a Mormon (and a robot) and preacher Mike Huckabee was a little too loony.
Even the old, respectable McCain, however, had a stalwart conservative record, rarely missing an opportunity to vote anti-choice and anti-gay. Indeed, the Human Rights Campaign produced a powerful video this week highlighting his votes against ending job discrimination and opposing hate crime legislation. It also showed him in a television ad pushing for the passage a failed constitutional amendment in Arizona that would have outlawed same-sex marriages and domestic partnership benefits.
Still, this reliably right wing record isn't enough to satisfy the Republican Party's right wing fringe. They will only be assuaged by vulgar, over-the-top displays of religious proselytizing and divisive culture war rhetoric.
"There's a lack of fire and passion for (McCain) right now, and for him to win, that fire has to be kindled," said the Rev. Jack Graham, a former president of the 16.2 million-member Southern Baptist Convention (SBC).
They can't get excited about a man who has promised Scalia-type judges, drove HRC into the video production booth and has pro-choice advocates on edge? Talk about a bunch of spoiled brats who want all the marbles or they won't play the game!
If McCain panders to these inflexible ideologues, he can kiss this election goodbye. This intolerant fundamentalism isn't even working so well for the fundamentalists. The SBC reported a membership decrease of about 40,000 people from 2006 to 2007. Increasingly, polls show many young people are turned off by these churches' socially and sexually stunted positions.
The utter emptiness of the evangelical view on homosexuality is highlighted by the gay rights group SoulForce's national mega-church tour. On one stop, Willow Creek's Rev. Bill Hybels met with SoulForce Director Jeff Lutes who said Hybels "has no trouble with people being gay...Essentially what he advocates or what Willow Creek advocates, is celibacy. And that's where we differ."
So, Hybels' position is that millions of Americans are morally acceptable as long as they remain lonely and miserable? Social scientists recognize that human beings are social animals that seek romantic love. One can only assume that Hybels believes that GLBT people are outside the circle of common humanity and don't have the same needs as others.
To appease the far right, McCain and the GOP will feel intense pressure to adopt such incoherent and intolerant positions. If the peccadilloes of peculiar preachers become McCain's priority, social conservatives will have twice undermined his political ambitions -- causing him defeats in 2000 and 2008.
16 Comments:
Watching clips of a McCain 'rally' and an Obama speech says it all. Obama's are filled with energy and enthusiasm and the capacity crowds are animated; McCain's sorry speeches are more like an elegy with a relatively small group of moribund people who look more like they're at a PTA bakesale meeting than a political rally for POTUS.
posted by Anonymous, at
6/16/2008 2:20 PM
Here is a good excerpt from an article on The Huffington Post:
The question facing voters this year is: do you want a president who will take us into the future or do you want a president who's mired in the past? As Tommy Schlamme who, among many other great shows, executive produced The West Wing, told me: "Watching McCain's and Obama's speeches back-to-back the other night was like going from black-and-white TV to high-def."
posted by Anonymous, at
6/16/2008 3:34 PM
Another nail in the 'ex-gay' it's a choice coffin.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/06/16/AR2008061601038.html
posted by Anonymous, at
6/16/2008 6:55 PM
Hey, guys, don't be so sure! I thought Gore was going to win in 2000 and Kerry in 2004 - - - and look what we got stuck with. Don't sell short the Republican ability to cheat, lie, steal in order to win at the last minute! You always hear their usual arguments: the tax and spend Demies, the Demie give aways, and finally the breakdown of the family. They just have learned that to win by honing their message brilliantly using gay marriage, choice and abortion and, ultimately lies and rumors about Democratic candidates! What a way to win elections! So let's not count the chickens before they hatch, please! We need to do a lot of hard work to convince white blue collar men and white married women (the Hillary crowd) and Independents to vote for Obama. Otherwise, it's back again for another 4 years of same.
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