Evangelicals and social conservatives are drawn to hate like a moth to a flame...

[kentuck]

http://2012.talkingpointsmemo.com/2012/05/evangelicals-unhappy-republican-gay-marriage.php?ref=fpa

Evangelicals Unhappy With GOP’s Gay Marriage Strategy

<snip>

Evangelicals and social conservatives are urging Republicans to make the fight against same-sex marriage an election-year priority and go after President Obama over his new-found support for the cause. So far, the GOP establishment is resisting.

Rick Santorum pushed Mitt Romney to use the issue to his advantage. “I think what you see is his is a very potent weapon if you will for Gov. Romney if he is willing to step up and take advantage of a president who is very much out of touch with the values of America,” the former presidential candidate said.

But the Republican establishment is singing a different tune, showing little interest in focusing on the issue, and instead fielding questions about it by pivoting to the economy. The result is a strategic divide over how to handle the issue of same sex marriage on the right, pitting politicians against the evangelical community as they negotiate their response to the president’s gay marriage position.

Top Republicans on Sunday continued to charge the president with political opportunism, an attack the GOP has used since Obama’s announcement, arguing that his support of same-sex marriage was a part of a strategy to divide and distract the country from more pressing issues.

.......more

[RainDog]

1. The Reagan coalition is dead

Republicans who aren't religious ideologues know this.

[kentuck]

2. The Republican Party leaders are playing a game....

...they are pretending they are above such arguments but they are more than willing to let their conservative base make the argument at every opportunity. Are there any Republicans that aren't ideologues? I have my doubts.

[RainDog]

9. well, yeah. Dick Cheney could care less about this issue

along with a lot of other Republicans - but they most certainly won't say so because they rely on the religious ideologues to provide them with the votes for the things they do care about - like invading other countries on false pretenses.

So, not all of them are religious ideologues. As far as always ideologues - I can't think of any, offhand, that don't seem to be motivated by some sort of fear that stems from perceived self interest that requires the obliteration of, say, the middle class or the middle east so that plutocrats can sleep safely at night knowing their asbestos liability is covered...

not to say that's why Dick Cheney got to be v.p. He would've picked himself anyway. But maybe that's why he got to make the choice.

[TlalocW]

3. One, Ricky is wrong - 51% support the president and...

Two, I am kind of surprised at how republicans are running from or trying to avoid this issue.

TlalocW

[kentuck]

4. They want their cake...

...and eat it too.

[napoleon_in_rags]

7. I personally am not.

Their base really has two parts, the fundamentalist/social conservatives, who are more numerous, and the business class executive types, who are WAY more secular. The latter are really very effective and smart, but they have a different philosophy about smarts than us: Dems believe in a well informed populous who should be self governing, so we shout out what we think from the rooftops, but they believe that things should be run by smaller groups of "specialists", which is them, and as a result tend to conceal their thoughts, or rather trade them as a commodity in more closed groups, while presenting a public demeanor they think would be appropriate for "common" people, like a PR thing.

So the result is you don't really see the division publicly because you don't see the thoughts of the business class Repubs, but the division is there. The good news for gays is that I really don't think the business class Republicans are inclined to fight this.

I think what happened is this: The economy isn't picking up as fast as everybody wants, and its hurting at the polls. Obama saw a win-win, he could either accomplish a civil rights objective, or get the Republicans turning away from the core issues everybody cares about to start obsessing about gay people. The bad news is that they didn't and won't take the bait, at least at the level of central leadership. (We'll see if their punditry takes up the slack.) But the good news is for gays: America is realizing in tough times it doesn't have the time to obsess on what they are doing with their lives. And that is a step forward.

[provis99]

5. the author is confusing fundamentalists with evangelicals.

Plenty of evangelicals are liberals, but fundamentalists are always conservatives.

[napoleon_in_rags]

6. +1.

[xfundy]

8. Jesus was so filled with hate for gays--

--he forgot to mention them in his bestseller that everyone buys but no one actually reads.