Ken Connor, president of the Family Research Council, expresses dismay in today’s FRC Washington Update. He’s upset about the meeting of White House senior aides with 200 members of the Log Cabin Republicans last week.

One Log Cabin member quoted in The New York Times said Sen. Santorum’s views are “not really representative of what the Republican Party is moving toward. I think we are the future of the Republican party, people like us.” Do the political strategists in the Bush White House share this belief? Despite repeated assurances, both public and private, that the party has no intention of abandoning its commitment to the sanctity of marriage and the family, the White House and the GOP continue to court radical homosexual groups that agitate for policies that would destroy both of these indispensable social institutions.

The administration is pursuing this strategy for an illusory political advantage, while putting at risk
President Bush’s vast pro-family voter base. This incessant pandering to the homosexual lobby is deeply
troubling. If the GOP does not stand for the sanctity of marriage, then traditional values voters have little reason to give the party their loyalty.

Clearly the religious right wants homosexuality to be THE deciding issue in 2004. They do not want voters to think too much about the economy, unemployment, skyrocketing medical bills, the withering Social Security system, the $6 trillion debt we all owe, the giveaway of national parks to timber and energy companies, our botched handling of North Korea, $500 billion coming due for the war and reconstruction in Iraq, or inadequate homeland security funding.

So, will the religious right abandon the GOP and stay home over homosexuality?

If Massachusetts or some other state clears the way for gay marriage, then I fear the GOP will swing clearly against fairness for gays on several fronts, and the nation’s conservatives will have a powerful issue to scare the majority of voters into action against Democrats no matter how bad the economy and national security are.

If however, the Supreme Court rules in some reasonable fashion against sodomy laws while states pursue a more cautious approach toward marriage, then my guess is the religious right will continue to lose support for its pro-discrimination platform, and it will become increasingly desperate.

Connor concludes:

For another point of view on the implications of the Santorum controversy, I’ve attached an insightful column by Marvin Olasky, editor of WORLD magazine. Click the link below to read Mr. Olasky’s column. It’s vital that pro-family leaders stand firm in the defense of marriage, especially in view of the Republican Party’s drift on the homosexual political agenda and we appreciate Mr. Olasky’s willingness to speak out.

My brief comments on Olasky’s column are here.

Comments submitted to XGW’s former blog location:

Evangelical Christians have a group habit of wandering in and out of political activity. After the losses following the Scopes trial in the 20s, eC’s vanished from participating in elections down into the 50s. After the Civil Rights laws were in place, they again disapered until the late 1970s.

It seems not so much a matter of liberal versus conservative as it is worldly versus spirituality. The scenario tends to run this way. Something occurs that upsets the balance of eC life; teaching evolution, integration, sex education, gays. EC’s rally and begin political activity. They run into opposition. Which brings the more extreme eC’s to the forefront. Eventually many eC’s realize these people (William Jennings Bryan, Bull Connor, George Wallace) are an embarassment to the faith. Then there begins a movement back into the eC subculture. The extreme ones are left out on a limb and rapidly disaper from public life.

During the quiet times, the eC as a social organism adapts to the changes. The one I am familiar with is the long struggle to accept women wearing makeup and hair do’s. So, I would think this is very possible.

—Dale • 5/14/03; 9:23:34 PM

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