Getting Religion, Republican Style
Jonathan Chait
April 1, 2005
The Terri Schiavo saga has prompted yet another round of fears that the
Republican Party has been hijacked by religious conservatives. The truth,
however, is just the opposite: Religious conservatives have been hijacked
by the Republican Party.
The odd thing is how many people continue to believe that the religious
right pulls the strings in the White House and Congress. John Danforth, a
moderate former GOP senator from Missouri, expressed this fear the other
day in a New York Times Op-Ed article.
The traditional Republican agenda, he wrote, has "become secondary to the
agenda of Christian conservatives. As a senator, I worried every day about
the size of the federal deficit. I did not spend a single minute worrying
about the effect of gays on the institution of marriage. Today it seems to
be the other way around."
There is a remarkable amount of illogic packed into that paragraph. I
suspect Danforth didn't worry about gay marriage in his Senate days because
it didn't exist yet. And today, the Republicans don't care about holding
down the deficit not because they don't care about fiscal issues but
because their fiscal agenda consists of things that make the deficit larger
rather than smaller. If President Bush had a more ambitious economic
agenda, the deficit would be even higher.
But the larger fallacy here is the idea that the conservative social agenda
has subordinated the conservative economic agenda. How much time has Bush
spent worrying about gay marriage? Not very much. In January, a reporter
asked Bush about the prospects of a constitutional amendment banning gay
marriage, which he has said he supports. But Bush just shrugged and said it
didn't have enough votes in the Senate. "Until that changes," he observed,
"nothing will happen in the Senate." For his part, Bush did nothing to move
it along.
Gay marriage isn't the only Bush priority that lacks support in Congress.
Social Security privatization doesn't have the votes to pass either. Rather
than throw up his hands, though, Bush has persuaded business groups to
raise millions of dollars to lobby for privatization, twisted the arms of
recalcitrant lawmakers and barnstormed the country for weeks touting his
approach and threatening dire consequences for those who stand in his way.
And even as support for his approach has plummeted from already low levels,
he's vowed to keep on fighting.
On Social Security privatization, he's Winston Churchill. On gay marriage,
he's Neville Chamberlain.
As a supporter of gay rights, I'm happy that Bush hasn't pushed the issue.
But why aren't the leaders of the Christian conservative movement, who
regard gay marriage as a threat to Western civilization, unhappy? The
answer is that they've been co-opted. Republicans will help the social
conservative cause but rarely spend any political capital on it. Take the
Schiavo case, which supposedly demonstrates the social conservatives'
power. Sure, Bush flew across the country to sign a bill "protecting" her.
But as soon as polls showed the public disapproved of Washington's
intervention, Bush dropped the issue like a hot potato.
The main social conservative groups exist mainly to persuade rank-and-file
social conservatives to support an agenda to which they have no natural
allegiance. High on the Christian Coalition's list of its top legislative
priorities, for instance, are cutting taxes (No. 2) and privatizing Social
Security (No. 4), two issues that did not receive heavy emphasis in the
Sermon on the Mount. Their top issue - confirming Bush's judicial nominees
- does have a social angle. But in point of fact, conservative judges have
been far more aggressive in overturning regulations on business than in
turning back the clock on abortion or gay rights. That's why business
groups have raised millions of dollars to help confirm Bush's judges.
I suspect that, behind closed doors, most Washington Republicans take
religious conservatives for suckers. This has been evident from the
Washington Post's recent revelations about GOP activist and lobbyist Jack
Abramoff.
Three years ago, a casino-owning Louisiana Indian tribe called the
Coushatta hired Abramoff to help stop another tribe from opening a casino,
which the Coushatta feared would dilute their business. Abramoff hired
former Christian Coalition director Ralph Reed, who enlisted Focus on the
Family's James Dobson, who spurred his followers to send thousands of
letters opposing the new casino.
The poor souls riled up to stop legalized gambling had no idea that they
were pawns of another casino. It's a perfect metaphor for the relationship
between the Republican elite and the voters who put them into office.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-chait1apr01,0,7729010.column
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http://www.ElmerFudd.US/ http://www.notserver.com/
Scientology crooks: http://sf.irk.ru/www/ot3/otiii-gif.html
Scientology murder: http://PerkinsTragedy.org
Improving the herd: http://www.rightard.org/
http://www.religiousfreedomwatch.org/extremists/ricef.html
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