A tale of two "secular Republicans" - Were both burned?

Lou Dubose's "The collapse of Karl Rove" on Salon.com is informative. He opens with an anti-Bush lament from a "secular Republican" he knows.

Secular Republican. The term is extremely rare. But now it emerges baldly. Yes, Virginia, there are secular Republicans. But they must be qualified as such, and that was not always the case. Among secular Republicans there is great diversity, of course; as there is among religious Republicans. But secular versus religious may be the new GOP dividing line. Dubose seems to think so.

Collectively, secular Republicans have for nearly 20 years been a minority partner in the shadow of the religious conservatives--conservative evangelical Protestants, conservative Roman Catholics, and conservative Mormons--who loom larger. (Dubose at one point refers to them as "social conservatives," but for most of them the greatest foundation of their social conservatism is religion-informed or religion-based bigotry or superstition.)

Lou Dubose, like many commentators, credits Karl Rove, President Bush's soon-to-resign political adviser and himself essentially a secular Republican, as a principle architect of this confederacy. Rove's plan for the GOP called for courting religious conservative voters. Rove saw that the religious vote was taking over the GOP in many states anyway--including his own Texas. He didn't merely play along; in time, he actually found the conservative religious Republicans their candidate: George W. Bush.

But as Dubose's unnamed friend demonstrates, not all secular Republicans went along willingly with this confederacy. (But went along they did, as Republicans do well.) Some of them have been holding their noses since at least the early 1990s'.

Dubose suggests that 1994 was the tipping-point:

In Texas, we saw this modern iteration of the Republican Party come together in the summer or 1994, as Bush kicked off his first successful run for public office.... Social conservatives had already joined together with economic conservatives when Ronald Reagan got into bed with the Rev. Jerry Falwell. But it was Rove who consecrated the union.
.....
[T]he Christian right showed up at the Republicans' state convention in Fort Worth, in 1994, with enough delegates to seize control of the party. The dominant Christian faction tossed George H.W. Bush's handpicked state chairman and longtime friend, Fred Meyer, out of office and replaced him with a charismatic Catholic lawyer from Dallas. It banned liquor from convention hotels and replaced hospitality-room bars with "ice cream sundae bars".... It summoned delegates to Grand Old Prayer Sessions, required Christian fealty oaths of candidates for party leadership, and made opposition to abortion the brand by which Texas Republicans would be defined.

The secular Republicans who welcomed their religious fellow partisans and the secular Republicans who (mostly secretly) did not probably both got burned in the process. The Religious Right's battle to takeover American culture and government through electoral and party politics has, for now it appears, left the GOP unsteady in the face of a relatively resurgent Democratic Party itself dragged kicking and screaming into action by a grassroots outraged by what the Religious Right's own George W. Bush had done to the health and standing of the republic since the Supreme Court gave him the presidency in 2000.

Dubose is much too quick to spell the end of the secular-religious co-existence within the GOP. The Religious Right has many means by which it asserts influence, and its rank and file can be outraged into action far more easily than can some Democratic constituencies. The Religious Right doesn't need Karl Rove as a broker--albeit a very cynical one--in the White House in order to spread lies (new ones all of the time), take over school boards, launch state-wide ballot initiatives, target friends of civil, publish best-selling books about American exclusivity or the "End Times," yammer away on talk radio, handout voter guides in tax-exempt churches, and wrap such efforts in the American flag. Thus they retain their influence, and remain a potent political power with evolving tactics. They will remain relevant to the Republican Party leadership for years to come.

Comments

[H. Lee Wilder]

I enjoyed your article. This morning, Arts & Letters posted an essay by P. J. O'Rourke concerning much the same underlying theme.

That article got me thinking, and when i got home from work today, I googled (it's now a verb, right?) "Secular Republican" and you blog came up first.

The conservative movement needs to deshackle itself from the Religious Right.

There is no supernatural being who designed the universe and who runs our lives. Period.

There is no reconciliation between Science and Religion.

There is no intelligent design.

Churches should pay taxes like any other corporation.

This is war now, and the Republican Party of America has been the first victim.

You're going to see two distinct parties split from this: the Christian Republicans and the National Republicans. They will lose several more elections until each becomes clearly delineated from the other and more importantly, with distinct and separate fundraising channels.

However,because the Democratic Party has been co-opted by the Civil Rights Political Method, that means that sooner or later, the fundamentalist belief system inherent in their politico-church system has as much rot at the core as the marriage of Religion and Conservative Values has had.

Black churches are not merely places of worship on the weekend. they are also tax-free, also offering political instruction and were absolutely instrumental in getting a Black man voted President, as well as instruction in how to participate in government handout programs.

At their heart and soul, however, these churches are socially conservative, and their controversial stands have had more to do with furthering Black entitlements to government welfare than to furthering so-called civil rights across the board.

This is going to alienate the next group who feels that they've waited long enough and their particular struggle will only come to fruition under the leadership of their generation at the highest levels of government.

I doubt if any openly Lesbian, Gay or so-called Transgender person would feel very welcome at a AME church social, even if they were Black.

The latest silliness from the Left reminds me more of the Nazi-Soviet Non-Agression Treaty made in the Summer of 1939 in that it's going to be impossible to sustain.

The Left is going to shortly experience something that their philosophy has never prepared them for.

Every group took the word "Change" to mean specifically their little corner of the world and society.

Well, "Change" is like "Luck"; it's not always good.

Ironically, within 25 years, you might see a political movement based on Science and Technology, and another based on some version of supernatural worship.

[Jairo Mejia]

Unbelievers are right in most of their thinking

You might be one of those who are abandoning Christianity; one for whom religious beliefs are not just irrelevant, but baseless. You might be right, at least to some extent. Some traditional beliefs are not true, and the “God” of main line traditions simply does not exist. Most people don’t dare to confront their religious beliefs, and opt for the status quo, afraid of abandoning the “certainty” of their convictions. Most have become marginalized from the institutional Church, and try to find an environment in which they may fill a vacuum in their lives.

An illuminating book gives hope to you! The author accepted the challenge of finding the One who is recognized, even by Gnostics and atheists—the Existence. “Christianity Reformed From its Roots – A Life Centered in God” is perhaps a generation ahead of the current mentality, but you might find that there is something for you, too!

Bishop John Shelby Spong says of this book that it “rightly points out that those who seek to defend Christianity’s past are also killing Christianity’s future.” I am attaching two reviews of the book by eminent philosophers and thinkers that might give you an idea if this book is an insightful reading for you. You might look also at excerpts of the book at this link of Amazon.com.

Sincerely,

Jairo Mejia, M. Psych., Santa Clara University
Author - Retired Episcopal Priest
Carmel Valley, California

http://www.mbay.net/~jmejia/Grudzen.htm
http://www.mbay.net/~jmejia/Churcher.htm

Very interesting, Jairo.