Faith & Consequences: What Terri's Law cost the Republicans in Congress.

Each December, the Family Research Council grades Congress on how it voted during the year on important conservative social issues, such as gay marriage and abortion. But this year, the group didn't even bother to score the Senate. Blame Terri Schiavo.

After the public backlash that followed congressional intervention in Schiavo's end-of-life case in March, conservative social victories were just too few to count.

.......

Republicans hold comfortable majorities in both chambers, and the number of conservative members has climbed in recent elections. But wary of overreaching again, Congress has done little since Schiavo to appease the GOP's evangelical base, delaying constitutional amendments banning gay marriage and allowing prayer in school, as well as new restrictions on abortion.

"The landscape changed," lamented Bruce Fein, a conservative columnist and former Justice Department official in the Reagan administration. "The wish list for the Christian right has been swept away."


http://www.sptimes.com/2005/12/18/Worldandnation/Faith_and_consequences.shtml

They found out, from the public's reaction to congress's actions in response to the Schiavo debacle, how far out of the mainstream of American thought the religious wackos really were. I think the jesus thumpers really overplayed their hand and it bit their political buds in the ass. We may still hear a lot of rhetoric kowtowing to the religious nuts but I predict that very little if any substantive policy changes will result from the blather.

that Bush didn't care either. He just used them. Try to find the films if you can "With God on Our Side" and "God in the White House." It shows how Karl Rove uses the fundies to get votes. Whenever they're losing in an election they use "hot button" issues like gay marriage and abortion and come out strong against them so the fundies will vote for them on those two issues. Never mind poverty and the poor enviornment and other matters that are supposed to really be Christian values that I've always been taught. Just like they did with Ann Richards, John McCain, Al Gore and John Kerry.
They'll never get away with Roe V Wade or do anything either way with gay marriage because they can still keep blaming the democrats/liberals and keep getting votes and corporate judges (which is what John Roberts and Alito are). Of course all the fundies fall for it hook, line and sinker sadly and divide us even more when it's not necessary. Just like the phoney "war on Christmas."

Bushbot theocrats are the worst kind. I've watched with humor as FauxBush News tried to claim a war was there against those who thought Happy Holidays was more fitting than a Merry Christmas.

I live in a red state and 98% of Holiday cards received wished Happy Holidays rather than Merry Christmas. Americans choose to be inclusive rather than exclusive. The bushbots need to learn that.

It cost them their status as the party that thinks they don't stick their fucking noses where they don't belong.

Worms, after all, are quite beneficial for aerating soil and performing their role in the ecosystem. Bruce Fein, they tell me, is all ours, and it's up to us humans to figure out how he fits into the ecosystem. They do allow that he'd make some pretty good worm food.

Okay, worms aren't picky eaters.