I support marriage equality and I am glad to see Republican elites deciding that they should support it too. But I don’t think the Christian right will fade away either:
The preferred plot line for many in the GOP establishment for revitalizing their party goes something like this: They move to a more libertarian stance on key social issues — particularly same-sex marriage — and the Bible-thumping, evangelical wing of the party meekly complies, realizing times have changed.
One problem with that scenario, however: The Christian Right, while a diminished force, doesn’t like how that story ends at all.
[…]Huckabee observed that social conservatives are already tired of the lip service from party leaders on cultural issues.
“People are just sick of it,” he said. “They’re treated like a cheap date — always good for the last-minute prom date, never good enough to marry.”
I’ve never understood what it means when serious people say “the hippies have to admit that Reagan was right” or “evangelicals have to admit that bible-thumping scares voters”. No one has to admit shit. That’s not how politics works.
If Gary Bauer wants to primary every Republican who supports marriage equality, there’s nothing David Frum can do to stop him. And remember what happened to the New York State Republicans who voted for marriage equality:
As four Republican state senators, one by one, agreed to break with their party and cast a politically risky vote to legalize same-sex marriage last year, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg and gay-rights advocates vowed to do everything in their power to protect them against political retribution.
But when the Legislature returns to Albany next month, only one of those four senators will be among those sworn into office. One, facing the prospect of a tough challenge, decided not to run again; a second was defeated by a more conservative Republican in a primary, and on Thursday, a third conceded defeat after a monthlong paper-ballot counting process in a three-way race in which a more conservative candidate drew so many votes from him that the race was won by a Democrat.
eric
I wanna be able to vote against gay people (often based on hatred) and science (often based on stupidity) and modernity (often based of closed-minded fear), i just dont want people to get upset about it. Eff you…own your stupid ass bigotry and call a fag a fag and let us call you a hypocritical religious zealot full of hate. That is all.
Yutsano
How in the hell were Cuomo and Bloomberg supposed to keep the cray-cray on the Right in check? The only influence they could have would be to keep Democrats from mounting too big a challenge to them. If any of the Senators took that promise to heart they deserved to lose good and hard.
Gex
When you court eliminationists as your base, you kind of have to accept that they will never willingly coexist peacefully in any sort of compromise on the issue. That was the characteristic they were selecting for.
When the base you cultivate would rather go down in martyrdom in order to stay faithful to the cause, you also don’t get to be surprised when they refuse to moderate.
Hunter Gathers
You assume that they ever gave a fuck.
jrg
Interesting choice of words.
Tone in DC
A cheap date, that isn’t good enough to marry??
These bozos have been pretty much running the GOP since 1985. These reactionaries are more like a some crazed in-law; anyone unfortunate enough to have married into their family needs a lawyer and/or a new place to live. Even if it’s a refrigerator box.
raven
Love should last more than one day. . .
Sly
Libertarians vs. Social Conservatives? The only reasonable and moral thing for a liberal to do is to root for injuries.
ranchandsyrup
Agreed that they don’t “have to” do anything. There is an implied “or else” there that some sort of benefit would accrue from admitting something. In reality they have very little incentive to admit that a position or tactic was wrong. There is not much upside at all.
Tonal Crow
Paraphrase of a line from Taxman?
marshall
You know, if this happens once, it might be an accident. Twice, happenstance. If, however, it happens three times, you need to take a serious look at your manners and personal hygiene.
Not that they will.
Chris
Of course not. They’ve been here for all of history. In the twenties, it was Prohibition. That kicked their asses, so they forgot about it. Then in the fifties, they came back with demands for a new national motto and a new Pledge of Allegiance. They got what they wanted. But that didn’t make them happy either, so in the eighties, they started talking about abortion and gay marriage. If we can finally beat them on those issues, they’ll find something else and come right back.
The pretexts change. Christian supremacism keeps coming back for more.
DougJ, Friend of Hamas
@Tonal Crow:
Not Fade Away.
raven
@Tonal Crow: Not Fade Away. Buddy. Taxman is “Let me tell you how it will be”.
dance around in your bones
♪you’re gonna give your love to me ♫
Chris
Because they know that fully embracing your positions in fact as well as in word would cost them too many votes. They know that you’re not strong enough or popular enough to mount a successful third party of your own. And they know that when push comes to shove, most of the people in your pews will vote for them anyway, because the alternative is a Kenyan Muslim Socialist Usurper (or whatever they come up with for the next president).
You are a cheap date. And you’re not good enough to marry. Those are the facts.
the Conster
I think the Republicans should take Rick Santorum’s analysis to heart, double down on it, follow his advice and then make sure he’s their nominee in 2016.
Chris
@Sly:
Word.
There’s really no one in the Republican Party who’s not-despicable enough to actually root for.
kindness
Well, who can blame them really?
I mean, who would want to marry an asshole like a fundie Christian? I am not that much a masochist thank you very much.
SatanicPanic
That’s rich coming from people who are always telling us who is and isn’t good enough to marry.
Jim, Foolish Literalist
@the Conster: I could see Santorum going third party on this, even state level challenges that could really shake things up
I know Nancy Reagan’s “I don’t give a damn about the right-to-lifers!” is probably apocryphal, but it’s been true of the GOP money people for thirty years.
PIGL
@the Conster: we should do all we can to encourage them in this. I for one would willingly were a sweater vest for the next three years, if it would help.
Tonal Crow
@the Conster:
Damn straight. And to keep him in line, they should pair him up with Gary Bauer.
jl
Huckabee wants to marry Priebus? I guess that is real news, I can’t say I care much, but I firmly believe that the Huckabee/priebus union deserves equal rights and I wish them both the best and hope they are happy together! I sincerely do.
Zifnab
The entire Republican base is composed of fundamentalists. Some of those fundamentalists are Randroid free-market fetishists. Some of those fundamentalists are God-bothering xenophobic theocrats. But the prevailing theme in the GOP is “We do what we do based on the staunch belief that we are right, not on what current evidence would suggest is true.”
Reagan’s Big Tent was all about creating a coalition between a host of *ahem* diverse viewpoints. And a great deal of the duty of the religious right was to indoctrinate the faithful into believing tax cuts and foreign wars and whatever bastardized version of economics Arthur Laffer and Alan Greenspan cooked up would remain kosher.
That makes me think the GOP leadership is going to keep caving to Evangelical voter pressure in the long run. Evangelism was central to the GOP’s GOTV efforts and propaganda campaigns. The 700 Club is as much a product of Republican propaganda as FOX News ever was. And there are plenty of bright red states – like Utah or Alabama or the Dakotas – that can get by just fine as Evangelical strongholds. But they can’t survive if the GOP brand is poisoned by evil liberal secular atheism. When push comes to shove, the religious right will keep churning out evangelical voters in a way that Randian Libertarian conservatives can’t compete with.
Irish Steel
@the Conster:
Santorum/Huckabee 2016!
The Faith And Values Party vs The Bags Of Lucre Party
Please oh please let it be so.
Citizen_X
Shorter GOP Establishment: As soon as we can moderate our suicide bombers, we’ll be in pretty good shape.
boatboy_srq
Isn’t that how the infighting in the GOTea is supposed to work out?
More popcorn, please.
Chris
@Zifnab:
That’s a really great way to look at it, actually. Religious right as the interface between the robber barons on Wall Street and the Angry White Conservative voter base many of whose members would have been gravitating to a Huey Long or a William Jennings Bryan in times past.
jl
Sad thing is, this is just gay marriage. What will happen when the GOP admits that there is some chance that modern physics, evolution, molecular biology, embryology, cosmology and post-1800s human reproductive biology might be true.
No hope they will ever admit anthropomorphic climate change theory might be true, since both the money bags and the Xtianists are agin’ that. Maybe they can settle for that, and forge ahead together, as an aging out-of-it unhappy couple.
Edit: My next bright idea: GOP could embrace keynesian fiscal policy. All the money people have to do is figure out how to funnel a lot gummint dough into fundamentalist religious theme-parks. I’m sending in that idea and will surely get a sweet $$$ GOP consulting gig. I’ll send a postcard to you suckers from my vacay in Hawaii.
priscianus jr
This does not bode well for the GOP.
RaflW
Booo hooo for the business/anti-tax class that threw in with the Christianists for electoral advantage for a couple of decades and now feed saddled with their reprobate moral strictures.
Tough shit. Y’all threw your lot in with the haters, and you can’t just scrub it off in one or two electoral cycles.
Tonal Crow
@Zifnab:
This is an excellent observation: Republicans are united in their opposition to using evidence to evaluate hypotheses. And they wonder why the vast majority of scientists reject their party.
patroclus
I agree. All this “it’s coming” talk and the general assumption that the Republicans are going to roll over and quit on equal marital rights is pie in the sky analysis to me. They are going to fight this every inch of the way, in every state and every time progress is sought. And the evangelical base is going to hold “moderate” Republicans’ feet to the fire or primary them and exterminate their political careers. The issue isn’t over and won’t be over until a Loving v. Virginia-like USSC case is decided, in my view. Which is why I’m somewhat sanguine about the Perry and Windsor cases – if, as expected, the Court punts and issues limited holdings that do not decide this issue (albeit somewhat favorable), it is going to go on and on. This is why they enshrined the discrimination in the state Constitutions; this is why they’re defending DOMA.
I’m pleased that we have positive momentum at the moment. But momentum alone will not give us equal protection of the laws.
Splitting Image
@Chris:
I don’t think so. Not this time. Don’t underestimate how much damage they’ve done to the brand by getting into bed with the Catholic bishops just in time for details of the child-abuse scandal to come out. I would never have thought the Catholic church would lose its grip on Ireland so fast, but the church there proved that it really is possible for them to step over the line.
The moneyed classes will be ruling the party for the foreseeable future, but I think this time the god-botherers are going to have to take the “god” out of their work if they want to stay in business. That is going to require a fairly extensive reworking of the corporate brand.
Villago Delenda Est
@Sly:
This is exactly what you do. Two groups of seriously fucked up people dukeing it out for supremacy of American fascism.
Southern Beale
With Republican arguments against same sex marriage like these, I hope they keep talking so we can keep mocking.
Villago Delenda Est
@jl:
The Jeebofascists are fighting The Enlightenment in a country founded by followers of same.
And the stupid fucks don’t even realize it.
? Martin
@Yutsano:
One, their first effort would have been to keep a strong Dem challenger out of their race.
Two, they would have thrown those guys something they could take home to the base. Ensured they got a vote on something important for their district, or a bunch of pork to bring home.
catclub
@jl: “anthropomorphic”
genic — anthropogenic climate change
Southern Beale
BTW, the Christian Right only has themselves to blame. They drank the free-market, anti-tax, small government, GOP Kool-Aid. The were all-in on policies that hurt the poor and disenfranchised. They lost sight of their Biblical principles on economic issues and war and torture. What the hell did they expect would happen? They lost the “Christian” long ago. I actually find this turn of events, while predictable, also incredibly funny.
Splitting Image
@Zifnab:
Or in other words: this. I think that the “Christian” aspect of the party is on an irreversible decline, but the fundamentalist aspect will likely stay intact. The trick is how much of the base that identifies as “Christian” will disown the hippie from Nazareth when the cock crows and how many will assume that the Republican rebranding is evidence of the secular-socialist Islamofascist takeover that their preacher has always warned them about.
muddy
@Tone in DC:
It’s not a “legitimate” date, there’s this process that shuts that whole sensible politics thing down.
Chris
@Villago Delenda Est:
“Come see the Night of the Long Knives! Who will win in this epic battle for supremacy, the SA or the SS? The suspense is killing us! Betting tables over here, popcorn stands over there.”
RaflW
@Zifnab: Other than just pure rote repetition of the Gary Baures and many fellow zombie theocons, I cannot get what is Christian about low taxes. And yet, its become received wisdom that Jesus would be a freemartekeer.
What’s the theology behind this?
OK, I’m pretty sure there isn’t a theology behind it, but it still bears asking, if just to see the “does not compute” blank stares coming back.
SatanicPanic
@RaflW: Starve the beast- the government is evil, therefore taxes are evil is my guess
Chris
@Splitting Image:
All I can say is I hope you’re right. We’ll see.
@Splitting Image:
I think a lot of it has to do with what their preachers tell them. Will they obediently tow the GOP party line, or will they follow the crazy to its logical conclusion, declare the New Republican Party heretical, and go the way of Strom Thurmond?
I’m inclined to think that they’ll do the former, since many of them are grifters themselves who love them some wingnut welfare money. Their congregations may follow suit, but then again it’s possible that other Christian preachers will emerge who will, in turn, denounce the religious right establishment as part of the conspiracy and rally a bunch of their congregations.
Who the fuck knows with these people, I guess is the moral here…
Ash Can
Aw, the poor, poor GOP trying to stuff the Dr. Wacko’s Bat Guano Toothpaste (now with Fresh Essence of Jimsonweed) back into the tube.
Popcorn, anyone?
Svensker
@catclub:
Climate change with a human face!
Grumpy Code Monkey
@Tonal Crow:
To be fair, there’s no shortage of fundamentalist, woo-worshiping anti-empiricists on the left (anti-vaxxers being the most visible and, at the moment, the most dangerous, but they are far from being alone). We just don’t let them run the goddamned party.
Honestly, I it’s less about Republicans being anti-empiricist in general, and more about the anti-empiricists driving the message.
RaflW
@Splitting Image: I’m slightly ill about my own cynicism here, but … I’ve been impressed with how much the new Papal Unit is changing the narrative trajectory. Who knew that washing the feet of two women (one of them Muslim!) would get the press and a whole lot of lay Catholics to fawn and swoon at his humility.
It’s quite a fan dance he’s doing, getting darn near everyone to stop talking about the decades and decades of abuse and coverup after coverup. Masterful. We’ll see if it lasts.
Roger Moore
@Tone in DC:
No, they haven’t been; that’s the point. They’ve been out front publicly, and they’ve provided the ground game that’s put Republicans in office, but they haven’t gotten their way on policy to nearly the extent that the Chamber of Commerce wing of the party has. Their stuff gets put in the party platform, but when push comes to shove it’s the part of the platform that gets short shrift when it comes time to spend some political capital on doing anything. That’s why abortion is still legal and gays can serve openly in the military.
catclub
@Svensker: Isn’t it a bad thing when something ‘goes all pear shaped’?
Roger Moore
@marshall:
It’s not their personal hygiene that’s the problem. The problem is that their phone number is scrawled on every bathroom divider in the school with “For a good time call” next to it. They’re absolutely sure that this time the boy really means it when he says he’ll respect them in the morning.
patroclus
@Roger Moore: Actually, in the last three years, the anti-abortion forces have taken over the party at the state level and have enacted the most sweeping restrictive legislation seen since Roe v. Wade. Especially in the Dakotas and Arkansas in the last two weeks. Your description was accurate up until the 2010 election; it isn’t all that accurate any more. We shouldn’t pretend that this is not happening.
scav
@muddy: All this cheap dating, and we’ve not pointed out that they’ve all just been getting married and still living as separate, but getting all the benefits?
Edited for Clarity: How downright GA-Gay of them.
Roger Moore
@patroclus:
They’re talking about the national level, not the state level. There are plenty of individual states where the religious wackos have managed to take over the party, but they still haven’t made a serious dent in business dominance at the national level.
Just Some Fuckhead
Huckabee should flip that around. People are sick of social conservatives always getting their nose out of joint over other people’s business. Yeah, it sucks someone might do something I don’t like. Grow up, social conservatives.
The Ancient Randonneur
I have to admit DougJ is right.
Chris
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
I think the thing is that Republicans have to be anti-empiricist these days, because any empirical look at, well, anything, will lead them pretty quickly towards the conclusion that they’re wrong.
In the Victorian Age, it was possible to honestly believe that Randroid style capitalism was the best thing humanity would ever achieve and that there was no way to rein it in without hurting people – you’d have to have a pretty poor imagination and a strong aversion to trying anything different, but, you know, you didn’t have to be completely deluded and plugged into an alternate universe. Nowadays, after all the social-democratic reforms of the twentieth century and the prosperity that followed these reforms, that’s no longer possible. So modern conservatism relies on a Pravda-like detachment from reality in a way that older generations perhaps didn’t have to.
(At least on economics).
burnspbesq
@raven:
Speaking of “Taxman,” over a Balkinization Jason Mazzone throws out an interesting idea (which I assume is not an April Fools’ joke) about how the Supremes can dispose of Windsor without making a sweeping ruling one way or the other.
He suggests that the Court should simply decide that there is no rational basis to apply the DOMA definition to any provision in the Internal Revenue Code that provides any special status or special benefit to married people. If you live in a state where your marriage is legally recognized, you can file joint returns, get a marital deduction, make a 6013(g) election, etc.
It’s cute, but as a tax guy I don’t like it. Lots of administrative problems lurking there.
http://balkin.blogspot.com/2013/03/how-to-decide-united-states-v-windsor.html
muddy
@scav: Perfect description of their privilege.
Tone in DC
@Roger Moore:
I see your point, to an extent. When the faces of a movement are Fred Phelps, James Dobson, Gary Bauer and Phyllis Schlafly, it’s going to be difficult to gain widespread support among the non-reactionaries.
Gex
@RaflW: It stems from Just World theory and prosperity gospel. What you get is now a function of your goodness. It is how God rewards you here on this earth. The government has no right to take that from you and give it to people whom God is punishing by making them poor.
Chris
@Roger Moore:
I think the national/business elites are okay with that status quo continuing forever. As with a hundred years ago… let the social conservative/Dixiecrat types run their own little fiefdoms as they see fit at the local level, while New York magnates continue to control the Big Picture.
It’s not like they really care whether Podunkville, Oklahansas allows gay marriage or not, and as long as that stuff stays at the local level, it gives them the option of backing more moderate candidates in places like the Northeast.
patroclus
@Roger Moore: Yes they have. They forced Romney to abandon his formerly pro-choice position, his formerly pro-immigration position and his former pro-gay rights position in order to get the nomination. And they control the House – which passed 30-odd bills last Session attacking Roe v. Wade. You shouldn’t pretend that they are powerless at the national level of the party – the only reason they haven’t had policy success is because the Dems control the Senate, the Prsidency and Anthony Kennedy+ four liberals are on the USSC.
The analysis has changed since 2010 – you should recognize that.
El Cid
BUT YOU WILL ADMIT THAT THE SURGE IS WORKING YOU MUST ADMIT THAT THE SURGE IS WORKING EVEN LIBERALS HAVE TO ADMIT THAT THE SURGE IS WORKING
burnspbesq
@El Cid:
Define “working.”
El Cid
@burnspbesq: DON’T MAKE ME HAVE TO REPEAT MYSELF EVEN LOUDER, I may have to also start screaming CONSTITUTION and FOUNDING FATHERS, and this will surely prove my point.
Tonal Crow
@Grumpy Code Monkey:
Please flesh this out. Now that my eyes have been opened, I see little empiricism of any kind in the Republican party, except in their formulation of propaganda, and even there they’ve recently lost their edge.
schrodinger's cat
OT Question for BJ hive mind, especially ones that hire people.
Should you list your visa/citizenship status (permanent resident) in hubcat’s case, to improve your chances of not ending up in the reject pile. He is tired of the endless post-doc and applying for industry jobs.
My suggestion: Adding it as a P.S. in the cover letter.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
After listening to people yell “Where are the jobs” at the Republicans, national and local, for the past two years, I have come to a conclusion.
All those anti-abortion and anti-gay and anti-Obamacare bills? They are job creation bills.
Get the country Right with God by legislating morality, and He will shower jobs and prosperity down upon the Nation.
Yutsano
@burnspbesq: Dear Allah that would be fucking hell to program. Not to mention a bitch and a half for compliance purposes. TAS better snap me up this time, I don’t wanna jump on that crazy train.
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
Sadly enough, THEY BELIEVE THIS.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@Yutsano:
Of course. It’s the underlying theme throughout the Old Testament, as it’s taught in their Sunday Schools.
Roger Moore
@schrodinger’s cat:
I’ve certainly seen more than my share of CVs that mention citizen or permanent resident status. IIRC, employers are not supposed to ask about that information (unless they have a bona fide reason to know, like security clearance), but I don’t think there’s any problem with mentioning it. There may be some employers who prefer people on temporary visas, but you probably want to steer clear of them.
schrodinger's cat
@Roger Moore: Oh yes the infamous H1-B body shops. Do not want.
Woodrowfan
@Zifnab:
This!
Woodrowfan
Hey we’ve only been trying Reaganomics for most of the past 32 years! it’s bound to work any second now..annnyyy second….
Chris
@Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism:
You would think the story of Job would knock it into their heads that how well you’re doing on this Earth has absolutely nothing to do with whether you’re obeying God’s commandments or even with whether or not he thinks you’re an all right guy.
But then, you would also think that “whatever you did not do for the least of these” warning would also have knocked it into their heads that Ayn Rand’s “altruism is a sin” POS was, well, a POS.
Damn, it’s almost as if following the words of the Bible is NOT the foremost thing on their minds.
The Moar You Know
well, Mikey old boy, that’s because the so-called “leaders” of the social right have been, to a man, cheap whores all. Every last one in it for the money and nothing else.
If you’re a whore, expect people to treat you like one. Your money’s on the dresser and it’s the usual amount. Now get the fuck out because the respectable people have some business to conduct.
Chris
@The Moar You Know:
I wonder if Huckabee was one of of these people who thought he could change that, and make religion > money in the Republican Party. Just because of the way he posited “Wall Street vs Main Street” and occasionally said populist things that made the banksters’ hair stand straight up.
To be clear, I wouldn’t think better of him if he did – “religion” for him is psycho-theocracy which would if anything probably be worse than the current banksterocracy.
southend
@Tonal Crow:
Actually, I think it’s from “Not Fade Away”…
jl
@catclub: Thanks, That ‘anthropomorphic’ didn’t look right, but I couldn’t think fast enough before I hit the button.
Evolving Deep Southerner
@Chris: I’m inclined to see the latter happening as one who has lived among this mindset my whole life. They’ll go the full Strom Thurmond. They’ll almost have to in another six to eight years. It would sure be a more just, honest national death (or at least a national discreditation of them. While they don’t deserve justice or honesty, the rest of us do.
Chris
@Evolving Deep Southerner:
Nothing would please me more than to watch the religious right be finally marginalized to third party status. One less group of sociopaths in the GOP can’t hurt, especially that one.
Bruce S
“If Gary Bauer wants to primary every Republican who supports marriage equality, there’s nothing David Frum can do to stop him.”
Maybe it makes me a bad person, but the more there’s a shitstorm inside the toxic vessel of the GOP over “social issues” that signify retrograde ignorance and bigotry, the happier I will be. The elites have – with no qualms – unleashed and legitimatized some hellish factions when it has served their interests, and if it all comes back to bit them in the ass, all I can say is “Bite harder!”
I also predict this will transpire, and these raving fucktards that have provided significant leverage for the scum at the top can’t just be erased or eradicated in an election cycle or two.
liberal
@Grumpy Code Monkey: