Cons distancing themselves from Religious Right?

Seems Con talking heads are adjusting their affiliation with Conservative Christians.
Recently, Rich Lowery spoke to conservative youth and first line out of his mouth stated religion is not what conservatism is about. Now, granted Lowry could simply be pandering to young people who do not want associate with zealots. However, other talking heads rarely mention/evoke god in public whatsoever. Hannity definitely has toned down the jesus speak. What do Duers think? Even Free Republic god speak has lowered. Anyone else notice?

If this were happening in '04 or next year then I'd say there was definitely a shift to ousting the idolaters of the right.

but 06 is almost upon us. For example Santorum started the Fundie stuff in Pennsylvania...You know. Mass Liberalism created the catholic pedophile issue, Santorums feminist jab at hillary. The buddy christ rhetoric created no inroads on Casey's lead. So, if republicans want to get any legislation through and the religion card does not work seems like a way for Conservatives to save face coming 06

I wouldn't give them a second thought, except it appears as though they conspired to "elect" bush, and that's where they crossed the line.

they found out that bible thumpers weren't as numerous as they had hoped. They figure that if they tone down the rhetoric then it might bring back the more libertarian RW and some of the alienated gay RWers.

Every so often I remember reading articles of how many evangelical christians there are in this country, approx. 70 million. The righties have used this in the past to imply that there are 70 million conservative fundies in the US. Nothing could be further from the truth. The conservative fundies are a small but vocal subset of EC's. Heck even amongst fundamentalists there are liberals.

In fact, I knew an extremely fundamentalist Christian (thinks all who haven't accepted Jesus will be in hell, hates gays and abortion, etc.) who voted for Kerry because of education and healthcare.

The Big Money whoredom really didn't like taking the hit that followed on the Schiavo crap and the whole 'Justice Sunday' idiocy. That really was a stupid, discrediting, indefensible bunch of crap by the Christian Right leadership this spring. And the nonpartisan American public responded so badly to it because the vicious anti-gay bigotry last summer and fall ultimately (or finally) got on its nerves.

The Christian Right serfdom is also defeated. This summer the numbers on abortion rights or banning- their central political issue- abruptly broke out of the 25-30 year stalemate. The Undecideds all went over to 'pro-choice' and that's now a straightforward national majority in the 55/40 range. The event that did it was evidently O'Connor's resignation letter.

'Pro-life' as a political position is now smaller in support than Republican support, so it's now a wedge issue among Republicans. Plus, fundies feel betrayed by the GOP and demoralized by Republican politicians pointing out that the American people is walking away from them and their churches and all the other stuff- Creationism, school prayer, fundamentalism, religious particularism/exclusivism. The Culture War- the post-1968 to re-'Christianize' the society if not impose Dominionism and destroy religious and cultural pluralism- is decided. The Christian Right knows it has lost. The Culture Warriors of the Christian Right are either throwing in the towel (e.g. Billy Graham) or retiring to sulk (Rev Moon), or trying to encapsulate themselves in communities in rural areas (there's that project to take over South Carolina, for example, or the whole Morman game in Utah), or going overseas to annoy foreigners.

I listened to a whole Laura Ingraham Show yesterday (yes, what a horror) and she had to work remarkably hard to keep herself from running culturally wildly liberal. (She loves Bob Dylan.) It was all the conservatism I knew from the hyper-WASPy prep school I went to for a couple of years- all about wealth and filching it together and class and bitchy status fighting, and enamoured of the selfcongratulatory WASP-centric subset of Broadway plays/productions. But: zero lip service, even, to all the God talk and Bible thumpery and anti-gay and anti-abortion stuff. It was all racist mocking of black English, classist pounding on the poor, all about 'frivolous lawsuits'- just one putdown after another of the weak, the poor, the French, indeed anyone non-Anglosaxon. But only the offhand 'thank God' to get at anything higher than making/keeping a buck and being cooler than anyone they didn't like. Not that Laura Ingraham is fully indicative of where the GOP is, but it's all purely about Our Kind Of People and money now on that show. If she can do that, if she can utterly ignore the Christian Right audience and still keep in the RNC's good graces...that Party is definitely changing.

pretty convenient to big money whoredom.
For example, the Schiavo fiasco. The medical industry would like nothing better than to drive the loved ones of the infirm into an unsurmountable amount of debt. It is in their best interest to take away the euthanasia option.

"Pro-life" is also very beneficial to big biz. If you have more slaves competing for a limited amount of menial tasks then you can pay them less.

population with few options...one of which is military service imho.

But it's too little too late. They helped get wingnuts on the Supreme Court. That is something I could never forgive them for, so the Cons can stuff their sudden religious neutrality so far as I'm concerned. The ship has sailed on my EVER thinking of voting for anyone even tangentially connected to people who now call themselves "conservatives".

Specifically, we need to kick those damn gays & lesbians out of the party, or at least get them to stop yammering about stuff like equal rights an' marriage an' stuff.

And the same goes for the gul durn Atheists, Jews, Buddhists and everybody who holds those antiquated notions of "separation of church and state". See, Ma and Pa Kettle Values Voter don't cotton to that kind of "God Hating" activity, and when Demon-crats, sorry, Democrats make crazy talk about how all courthouses shouldn't be built underneath six hundred foot tall granite monoliths inscribed with perpetually flame-encased neon etchings of the ten commandments, each letter fifty feet tall praised be Jeebus, they convince Mr. & Mrs. Religious Right Voter that the Democratic party is "anti-God".

Don't even get me started on the pledge of allegiance. Sure, it may be crass political cynicism, but I think the only way to get back these heartland majority glassy-eyed god squadders who hold the ONLY KEY to our electoral victories is to insist that the entire REST of the pledge be taken out (it was written by a socialist, after all) leaving ONLY the proper, respectful, god-fearing McCarthyite addition of "Under God". Now, clearly, a roomful of students standing and saying "Under God" isn't going to take as much time -or have the same impact- as reciting the entire pledge, so maybe they should have to say it... like, fifty times. You know, real fast. "Under God. Under God. Under God. Under God. Undergod. Undergod. Gunderodd. Rundgren. Ooops! Under God!"

Likewise, our stubborn, pagan, sinful insistence that women and not government should control their reproductive systems, and that pharmacists should fill birth control prescriptions instead of dispensing preachy lectures, is clearly out to alienate these folks. Now, this is complicated, so follow closely- the majority of Americans are PRO-CHOICE. A whopping 8%, or so, believe birth control should be against the law. Therefore, to win elections, we MUST COURT the anti-choice, anti-birth control, anti-sex extremists, preferably by aping the GOP's stances on all those subjects.

While we're at it, we should push for teaching of Creationism- and ONLY creationism- in public school science class. Fuck equal time! Everyone knows the Earth is only 5,000 years old- God said so! And if the GOP is trying to shoehorn in half-measures like teaching "intelligent design theory" (cough), we can ONE UP them by insisting on full bible literalism- and nothing else- in public schools!

Finally, it's obvious to every brilliant Democratic leader from Zell Miller to Joe Lieberman that the reason we've been losing elections is because we're not far enough to the right. Unlike the GOP, our guys don't sprinkle their speeches with gratuitous references to God and Jesus, even while behaving in the most beastly, un-Christian fashion imaginable. No, it's a lack of smarmy god-talk and not enough constitution trampling (as opposed to, say, DLC mealy-mouthed-ness... combined with Corrupt GOP state officials and Diebold cooperating on widespread election theft) that is killing our party.

Come on. Everybody knows that the problem in American politics is obviously that the religious right doesn't have enough power, and certainly not more power than they deserve!




...

No, I don't think they're toning it down, I expect to hear alot more of it. This is on the House Committee on Education and the Work Force web site:

"Now more than ever – in the weeks following Hurricane Katrina – we are seeing that faith-based organizations are a priceless national resource, providing help and hope to communities across the Gulf Coast and throughout the nation..

..We urge you to support the Boustany amendment to the School Readiness Act and allow these compassionate, professional organizations to extend a helping hand to our nation’s Head Start students."


http://edworkforce.house.gov/issues/109th/education/headstart/dc3092105.htm

But, recall, a couple of weeks ago Bush was PRAYING for us OUT LOUD, instead of doing his job.

It could be that he has realized the phony x-tianity is not going to hold much longer, and is looking for a way out.

I don't have a true grasp of which way this wind is blowing.

the rapture-ites. Several articles have been published concerning the believers in the rapture ( and they are quick to say the bu*h is a believer) and their influence in foreign policy; specifically Isreal. As well as environment issues. They believe that the rapture is coming soon and are hastening it by destroying the planet further propogating their belief that the end is near. Part of me believes that they have created the signs for themselves and are waiting it out.
Their 'WWJD' doesn't jive with their abandoment of the poor in the country.
In their ferver to be taken from the earth, they forgot some of the basic tenants of their faith; help for the poor.
The neocons Jesus speak is shelved temporarily, unfortunately.

a few days ago I read that Condi said, "the Lord will come if we wait". Or something similar. My comment: "I am out of wait".

The Republicans I work with (and for) realize that right now some of the stronger candidates for '08 are going to have problems with the Religious right. If you look at Rudi Giuliani, the man is Pro Gay Rights, Pro Choice and pro Gun control. Does that sound like the Republcian party you know? Same with Arnold Schwarzenegger, although he can not run for President, he is becoming more and more of a major player in the party (i.e. he spoke in prime time at the last convention)