How Republicans Pandered to the Bigotry of the 'Moral Majority'

[complain jane]

This is an email I received, that's been circulating the web. I thought it was very good.

How Republicans Pandered to the Bigotry of the 'Moral Majority'
January 18, 2005
http://www.christiangrantham.com

As Rove and other campaign officials sat around discussing 2004 election strategy, the perplexing problem kept coming up. How does President Bush get the Republican Party's "moral majority" base to care enough to vote for President Bush? The answer we now know was to appeal to the one thing that exit polls later suggested they cared about the most: moral values.

Did the Republican Party raise the moral value of abortion? No.
(See http://www.outletradio.com/grantham/archives/001205.php)

Was it wave after wave of speeches about school prayer? Hardly.
(see: http://www.criticism.com/policy/republicans-school-prayer-policy.php)

Was it placing the Ten Commandments in public buildings? Nope.

How about organizing rallies to stand for Jesus? Nah.

The one moral value that moved the Republican Party the most, as many Christian conservatives later wrote (see http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2004-11-07-oppose_x.htm) was the desire to discriminate against gay and lesbian Americans.

No other moral issue took up more time by the United States Senate Republican Policy Committee (RPC) before the elections than developing the Republican Party's roadmap to codify discrimination into the United States Constitution. A report by the RPC in July 2003 outlined the key horrifying results of gay marriage that demanded swift action by fellow Republicans.

Homosexual couples that marry in Massachusetts would have all the benefits of married couples in that Commonwealth. Many will buy property in and out of the State, adopt and rear children, get divorced, incur child support and alimony obligations, and enmesh themselves in the same kinds of legal obligations that most traditionally married couples do. (see The Threat to Marriage from the Courts - U.S. Senate Republican Policy Committee - 07-29-03, http://rpc.senate.gov/_files/CIVILsd090403.pdf).

The Republican party's pre-election obsession with the moral issue of
treating gays and lesbians equally was unprecedented.

• Some within the Republican Party took to the Senate floor declaring gay marriage a bigger threat (http://www.outletradio.com/grantham/archives/000374.php) to America's
  homeland than terrorism.
  
  
• Pamphlets warned rural Christian conservatives that if the liberals are elected they can expect their Bibles to be banned and the government to require their attendance at gay marriages.
  
  
• Republicans in the United States Congress embarked on an arrogant attempt to disempower the judicial branch (see: http://www.theorator.com/bills108/hr3313.html) from hearing any case
  challenging the Defense of Marriage Act.
  
  
• Republican led efforts to deny equal marriage rights in state after state (http://www.thetaskforce.org/downloads/MarriageCUSherrill2004.pdf)
  placed before voters ballot measures to constitutionally ban equal marriage rights for gays and lesbians.
  
  
• Massive church rallies claimed to "stand for marriage," echoing the theme of President Bush's "Marriage Protection Week."
  (see: http://www.cwfa.org/articles/4671/CWA/family/index.htm)
  
  
• Conservative leaders toured nationally rallying the faithful to vote for a constitutional ban of equal marriage rights for gays by voting for President Bush.
  
  
• Republican Party leaders worked directly with Christian conservative leaders (see: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32793-2004Nov7_2.html) to warn their congregations of the perils of gay marriage.
  
  
• Nothing topped the Republican Party's desire to codify discrimination in law than the President's consistent call to ban gay marriages with a constitutional amendment.
  
  And Christian conservatives bought every bit of it. Now that the Republican party base has delivered for President Bush in 2004, is the Republican party ready to enact discrimination to prevent the apocalyptic demise of this great nation? As the President recently said (see: http://www.outletradio.com/grantham/archives/001528.php), there isn't enough support in the Senate.
  
  Translation: Don't count on Republican pandering to bigotry until they need their voter base at the polls in the mid-term elections.
  
  During the campaign, you may recall, the president stoked his
  conservative religious base by embracing a constitutional amendment to bar even states from allowing gay marriage. Never mind that this was unlikely to pass Congress by the requisite two-thirds margin, not to mention three-quarters of the state legislatures. It was the perfect wedge issue, meant to paint John Kerry -- who was also against gay marriage, but not in favor of altering the Constitution -- as culturally out of step.
  
  So now that 43 is safely reelected, guess what? He's not really going to push for an amendment after all. As he put it in another context:
  
  

  Mission accomplished.

  
  (Backtrack Time - Washington Post - 01-18-05 http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17370-2005Jan18.html
  
  

[yardwork]

1. True - thanks for posting this

[Wright Patman]

2. Gay marriage and terrorism

have this much in common. Both are manufactured threats.

The only terrorists who could have pulled off 9-11 are within our own government or at least had the tacit permission of those within that government.

There will only be another one on that scale when it is deemed politically or economically necessary. If there were actually an organized Islamist plan to bring down America, there would have been dozens of such attacks by now, as porous as our borders still are.

Fearmongering works. Now watch this drive.