This goes along with John’s post of earlier.
Wing and a prayer: religious right got Bush elected – now they are fighting each other
In his consulting room in a suburb of Montgomery, Alabama, gastrologist Randy Brinson is a worried man. A staunch Republican and devout Baptist, Dr Brinson can claim substantial credit for getting George Bush re-elected in 2004. It was his Redeem the Vote initiative that may have persuaded up to 25 million people to turn out for President Bush. Yet his wife is receiving threats from anonymous conservative activists warning her husband to stay away from politics.
…
The reason he has fallen foul of men whose candidate he helped re-elect is that he has dared to question the partisan tactics of the religious right. “Conservatives speak in tones that they have got power and they can do what they want. Only 23% of the population embraces those positions but if someone questions their mandate or wants to articulate a different case, for the moderate right, they are totally ridiculed.”
“I would rather put my .38 pistol in a child’s room than put a computer or a television set there. The devil’s crowd is working how to get to your children,” declared Brother Richard Emmett in his Mothering Sunday sermon, broadcast to audiences in eastern Tennessee. There is a sense that some of the evangelists – using the medium that Brother Emmett reviles so much – may have overreached themselves. Jerry Falwell, founder of the Moral Majority, and Pat Robertson have embarrassed their followers by antics such as blaming the terrorist attacks of September 11 2001 on “the pagans and the abortionists and the feminists and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make an alternative lifestyle … to secularise America”.
Wow.
The pendulum swings, after having reached it’s right most stop with Bush’s re-election it’s now on it’s inevitable swing back through it’s arc to the other side. We’ll probably hit the left most stop sometime around 2010, then start back again. The interesting part will be observing who manages to hang onto the moving shaft and who falls screaming into oblivion.
Secular America?!?!? That is really a bad thing?
Let the extreme religious right fight amongst themselves, they have no intention in making this country fair and right for those that don’t follow their “beliefs and morality.” If there are actually a few of them that actually are willing to compromise for the sake of “un-holy” and believe there is room for non-Christians to practice what they believe without government sanctions, good luck to them and I hope you win.
I think I’ve got it now – if I embrace the Republican party, then Jesus loves me and I love the USA. Easy!
#2: It’s so easy to be anti-right when they do so many screwy things.
Religious fervor is cyclic. No sensible person could hardly stand Boston in the 18th century because of religious fanaticism. Fringe groups are to blame for a lot of this. The far left stirred the pot and forced large groups of conservatives to find a voice and political clout. Blame CNN and every liberal talking head that enraged these peoples sensibilities. They’re here and they’re not going anywhere. Radicals just need to hunker down and ride out the storm. It’s a time for centrists to lead.
I think this is some face saving. Both Richard Mellon-Scaife and Conrad Black are in no position to fund the right wing nuts anymore so these extremist voices will be muffled. This is the official explanation.
Its a gathering trick,
finding Fault in Others…and proclaiming ‘They DID IT”..
This is a shotgun affect, they AIm at everyone and hope NOt to shot themselves in the foot.
Problem is,
Those that LISTEN, and think they are correct.
standard Hitler…Find the Pigeon everyone Hates…gather your flock, and SHOOT all the Pigeons.
From my perspective, these people are using religion as a vehicle to get votes, and nothing more. Democrats, I’m sure, are just as corrupt as Republicans; but when you supposively claim to be religious, supported by God, for family-values, etc., the hypocracy is astounding.
In a country that is supposed to be a “free” society where people are permitted to believe what we chose to, it is important that we not impose our beliefs on others. At the rate we’re going, how are we going to be any different than the Taliban that we thought were so oppressing?
Christianity is anything but under attack. Christianity is the majority religion in the United States. Making the elections and politics a religion popularity contest is anything but just. People should be voting based on their individual values.
I just wish they would stop calling the religious-right *conservatives*. They are giving real conservatives a bad name. I know that I do the same sometimes when I use *Liberal* when I should say *far-left*.
But this is getting to be a habit that the media especially is good for. They know the difference between far-right and conservative, they just refuse to see it.
I’m not sure the far-right is even 20% but they make big waves, especially in the Republican party, just as the far-left is only 25 to 30% of the Democrats but weild a big stick in that party.
Centrists can win general elections, but can’t win the nominations most times of the 2 main party’s.
This is exactly why Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell are our friends. A liberal could never sway the followers of these guys. I have the faith that eventually these guys will each say or do something crazy enough that even their most fervent followers will see them as the charlatans they are.
#11 Yes sir, from my perspective too.
After any revolution, don’t the revolutionaries first kill each other?
Jesus hates blogs
Wow. Another anti-right story. This blog is dying. Don’t let the door hit you in the ass on your way out. Buh bye. By the way, you forgot to mention Hitler.
“I just wish they would stop calling the religious-right *conservatives*. They are giving real conservatives a bad name. I know that I do the same sometimes when I use *Liberal* when I should say *far-left*.”
A good point – not to mention that there isn’t a single mainstream left wing party in the US. People who call democrats ‘lefties’ have no concept of what they are talking about.
What most right wing people mean by ‘the left’ is ‘more left wing than me’ – and that is without discussing the pointlessness of a one axis description of polictical views.
James, FYI — the numbers are up again this month.