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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWhen You Hear Conservatives Talking About Religious Liberty, Watch Out
http://www.alternet.org/tea-party-and-right/when-you-hear-conservatives-talking-about-religious-liberty-watch-outAt the dawn of the Tea Party revolution, many conservatives were optimistic. The prevailing attitude among reporters and insiders alike was that the Republican Party had shed its misguided moralism and embraced hard-nosed economic realism as its core platform. Political author Dick Morris wrote, No longer do evangelical or social issues dominate the Republican ground troops .There is still a litmus test for admission to the Republican Party. But no longer is it dominated by abortion, guns and gays. Now, keeping the economy free of government regulation, reducing taxation, and curbing spending are the chemicals that turn the paper pink.
New York Times reporter Kate Zernike, author of Boiling Mad: Inside Tea Party America, agreed. For decades, faith and family have been at the center of the conservative movement. But as the Tea Party infuses conservatism with new energy, its leaders deliberately avoid discussion of issues like gay marriage or abortion.
Yet despite its focus on libertarianism, this new Republican bloc has spent the last three years fighting with unprecedented aggressiveness on the very social issues it was supposedly unconcerned with. Between 2011 and 2013, Republicans enacted 205 anti-abortion laws, more than they had in the prior 10 years combined (189). The Kansas house passed a bill that would give any individual, even essential government employees and hospital workers, the right to deny service to gay people. Though the bill did not pass the senate, similar bills are being introduced in at least nine other states, according to Mother Jones.
So what had changed? More than anything, it was the way that opposition to abortion and gay rights was justified: in the words of BuzzFeeds McKay Coppins, in terms of protecting religious freedom instead of enforcing family values. This change made Republicans appear more moderate, but actually signaled a rightward shift. Conservative ideas of religious liberty posited that the governments eventual goal was the oppression of conservative Christians, and compromise on any religious liberty issueswhich encompassed abortion, gay rights, and the Affordable Care Actwould be a violation of Christian faith. The notion of religious liberty thus gave small-government politics a cosmic imperative.
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When You Hear Conservatives Talking About Religious Liberty, Watch Out (Original Post)
xchrom
Mar 2014
OP
KG
(28,751 posts)1. When You Hear Conservatives Talking About Liberty, they're really talking bout privilege
Code words.