The Coming GOP-Evangelical Divorce

What are evangelical conservatives going to do? I ask the question not with any sympathy, but with a mountain of schadenfreudian glee. I am profoundly reassured about my country’s direction every time I hear Tony Perkins bemoan it.

But however it’s asked, it’s a question that’s growing more and more urgent.

Mike Huckabee says that if the GOP embraces same-sex marriage, “evangelicals will take a walk.” Others pooh-pooh this on the usual grounds that they’ve got nowhere else to go.

But they do:

BACK TO PRIVATE LIFE.

And it’s my bet that in, say, eight or 12 years’ time, that’s where a lot of evangelicals will be. Having gotten into politics to rescue America from the sinners and fornicators, I reckon a critical mass will decide by 2024 that it was fun while it lasted, but that the fight is hopeless.

It’s going to be fascinating to watch and see what the party does on same-sex marriage as these next months and years progress. I, for one, do not expect to see the senators tumble like dominoes after the push from Ohio’s Rob Portman. Too many of them are from states where adopting that position would be suicide. Remember, we’re talking here not about the mores of the state as a whole, but of its GOP primary voters. So Claire McCaskill could announce her support for same-sex marriage in Democratic Missouri. But Roy Blunt in Republican Missouri? One doubts it. Different state, really. He in fact just reaffirmed his support for the Defense of Marriage Act.

Perusing the list of GOP senators, one sees only a few who might follow Portman. Susan Collins of course; Mark Kirk; Kelly Ayotte, at least on geographic grounds, although she’s quite conservative. You get the idea. I haven’t studied the political situations of all 232 GOP House members, and I won’t, but the general picture is similar. Right now, a grand total of two GOP House members back gay marriage—Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida and Richard Hanna of upstate New York.

Two.

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http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/03/30/the-coming-gop-evangelical-divo...

• added by: FunkBrother 
• funkbrother commented on The Coming GOP-Evangelical Divorce2 hours ago

  The irony being, of course, that they are turning the GOP into that "fringe party".

• 3 comments