Sunday, April 07, 2013

Warning GOP Against Dumping Christians & Morals

Conservatives, including Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee, say that if the Republican Party launches a hopeless attempt to gain favor with liberal, young voters by abandoning its long-standing positions on abortion, marriage, and religious liberty, the result will be the loss of its largest voting block: The Christian base.
“I would caution the donor wing of the Republican Party . . . If they think social conservatives are the only thing preventing Republicans from winning, they’ll learn that their economic agenda will go down the tubes along with the Republican Party’s prospects.”
-- Gary Bauer, Christian conservative
For background, read GOP Strategy: Dump Old Uneducated Christian Voters and also read More High-profile Republicans Going Gay Agenda as well as GOP Moderation Lost the 2012 Presidential Election, Say Evangelicals

UPDATE 4/30/13:
“When a democracy bases itself on moral relativism and when it considers every ethical principle or value to be negotiable (including every human being’s fundamental right to life), it is already, and in spite of its formal rules, on its way to totalitarianism.”
-- Archbishop Thomas Wenski, Miami, FL
-- From "Social conservatives fight back" by Jonathan Martin, Politico 4/1/13

Huckabee and Santorum are reacting to the conventional wisdom that has swept through much of the Republican political class since the party’s latest presidential thumping last November: We’re getting our hats handed to us because young voters, minorities and women are turned off by our social stances and rhetoric.

Yet during this season of Republican soul-searching, comparatively little has been heard from the party’s social conservatives. It has been the would-be reformers — citing gay marriage, politically damaging comments on abortion and the need for immigration reform — who have dominated the discussion. Given the makeup of the modern Republican coalition, the social conservatives’ relative absence has been striking.

Yet as some party intellectuals openly wonder if the heyday of the religious right has come and gone, social conservatives are responding with ferocity, indicting John McCain and Mitt Romney for their losses and bluntly warning that the GOP will cease to exist if the party abandons those voters who are in the party because of, not despite, its platform on values. If cultural conservatives are headed toward extinction, they are making clear they won’t go away without a fight.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Santorum, Huckabee Resist GOP Call for Compromise on Social Issues" by Cyrus Afzali, Newsmax 4/1/13

While many argue that Republicans’ recent losses were due to a lack of enthusiasm among young voters, women and minorities who were turned off the party’s stance on issues such as gay marriage and abortion, some, including Santorum, argue the party would have been better to focus on the very issues that the establishment wants to avoid.

Social conservatives such as Gary Bauer, who ran for president in 2000, call many of those pushing for change on social issues “elites,” saying that changing positions on marriage will simply cause many of the GOP base to stay home on election day. Moderates respond that the stance is much like liberals of the 1980s who believed the reason they failed to win was solely because the faithful stayed home.

To read the entire article above, CLICK HERE.

From "Is evolving GOP leaving conservatives behind?" by Bruce Maiman, Special to The Sacramento Bee 4/2/13

. . . it appears Republicans want what Democrats have got: Latinos, women and younger voters. Is that the reason for revising previously bedrock beliefs on immigration, Obamacare, defense spending and even gay marriage?

If that's the case, is this about what the Republican Party stands for, or, to paraphrase Reagan, is the Republican Party in the process of leaving you? And if so, why has there been no effort to form a third political party that actually represents you?

To read the entire opinion column above, CLICK HERE.

Also read More GOP Congressmen Proudly Fund Abortionists, Gay Agenda as well as GOP House Rebuffs Conservatives' Religious Liberty  

The question for Christians to discern:
Are Republicans abandoning a God-fearing Party platform?