Burnt Orange Report

Religious Right Scares Even the Religious Right

By Andrew Dobbs

Saw this story linked by Andrew Sullivan and thought that it made some very interesting points. To wit:

No one can honestly question my commitment to pro-life, pro- family, conservative causes. That being said, the Religious Right, as it now exists, scares me.

For one reason, on the whole, the Religious Right has obviously and patently become little more than a propaganda machine for the Republican Party in general and for President G.W. Bush in particular. This is in spite of the fact that both Bush and the Republican Party in Washington, D.C., have routinely ignored and even trampled the very principles which the Religious Right claims to represent.

Therefore, no longer does the Religious Right represent conservative, Christian values. Instead, they represent their own self-serving interests at the expense of those values.

It also appears painfully obvious to me that in order to sit at the king's table, the Religious Right is willing to compromise any principle, no matter how sacred. As such, it has become a hollow movement. Sadly, the Religious Right is now a movement without a cause, except the cause of advancing the Republican Party.

Now, before you start celebrating, this guy isn't the most mainstream of the Religious Right leaders. The guy was the U.S. Constitution Party Vice Presidential nominee this year, so this guy seems to believe that Bush et. al are actually way too liberal. But that position isn't necessarily unreasonable- Bush has vastly increased the size of the federal government, trampled on states' rights and pushed us into massive deficits. He has abandoned traditional conservative ideology for a radical "big government conservativism." I would reccomend reading the rest of the story, as it has a lot of good info.

I myself am actually a person of deep faith. I don't write about it very often, and I have recently become more in touch with my beliefs than in the past, though I have been a Christian for some time. I have a conservative faith- I believe the Bible to be the inerrant (though not necessarily literal at all times) Word of God, I believe in the Virgin Birth, in Christ's divinity, in His crucifixion and resurrection, etc. But I vote for the Democratic Party. I am in the distinct minority of evangelical church-going Christians. For Democrats to start winning again we have to reach out to people like me while keeping our coalition intact.

But the issues that drive out the evangelicals are impossible for either side to compromise on, it seems. Abortion being the biggest issue. It is a tough issue for me- something I've been praying about a lot more lately. On the one hand, Psalms clearly says that God "knits" us while we are in the womb- and aborting that process seems to be an abominable sin. But on the other, God gave us free will and for the government to coerce people into following God's law seems to be taking a power into their hands that God did not even grant Himself. Others, however, aren't as concerned with the latter as I am and see abortion as murder plain and simple. Obviously they can't vote for a party who supports legalized murder no matter how cleverly they "frame" the issue. It is a principled position, as is ours, and neither can meet the other halfway.

So what is the solution? Perhaps it is to drive many of the Religious Right voters into third parties over GOP positions that aren't in coordination with their beliefs and reduce GOP numbers enough that our coalition is bigger. That seems rather difficult. Another is controversial, and I'm not sure I support it, but hear me out.

On abortion- which is really the biggest non-negotiable for the Religious Right- we can point out that short of a Constitutional amendment or massive sea change in the courts, nothing is going to happen. Constitutional change will almost certainly never happen and only Senators and the President have any say in the Supreme Court's makeup. In every other election, the prohibition of abortion isn't really an issue. What we WILL support (once again, I'm not saying I support this, I'm just throwing it out there) is as much legal restriction to abortion as is legal and prudent. Abortion is a devastating procedure which ought to be "safe, legal and rare." We'll keep 1 and 2 down, and on 3 we'll support parental notification, waiting periods, a ban on abortion for sex selection and bans on abortion after a certain point of time. If we can stomach these provisions and make the case that banning abortion completely is a non-issue for offices other than Senator or President, I think we can start focusing on other issues and win on those grounds.

And once an elected official at the Congressional or state level has proved him or herself to be a trustworthy official concerned with the issues important to religious people, they should be able to compete for religious votes for Senate or President.

What do you all think? Are the tradeoffs too high? Why not put those restrictions in place? The floor is open to all of you.