Glenn Greenwald argues that perhaps nothing "more powerfully reveals the true, deeply unprincipled face of the 'Traditional Marriage' movement" than the completely disparate treatment from the GOP leadership for [Sen.] David Vitter and [Sen.] Larry Craig."
The leaders of the religious right and the Republican Party are rallying around Vitter and calling for Craig to resign immediately. Why? Politics and grotesque and myth-based bigotry about homosexuals. (These moralizing Machiavellians' homophobia may be best revealed by contrasting their outrage toward a married man who solicited sex--but didn't get any--with their support of a married man who had sex repeatedly with prostitutes.)
Confessed "serial-[female]-prostitute-hiring" David Vitter, if he resigned, would be replaced with someone appointed by a Democratic Governor; but male-sex-soliciting Larry Craig, if he resigned, would be replaced with someone appointed by a rightwing Republican Governor.
Perhaps the most disturbing part of Greenwald's post is fact that Chris Matthews during his MSNBC program referred to Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council as a "great man," and described him with this remark: "conservative people like yourself, who are not politicians, but are men of the church, who believe in values, rather than election results..."
Huh? Obviously Chris Matthews is ignorant about the religious right--probably never having read this blog, Talk To Action, or DefCon--and fails utterly, inexcusably as a supposed journalist, to understand that the religious right is a political movement by definition.
Greenwald put it this way: "Whatever else one wants to say about the 'family values' wing of the right-wing movement, the absolute last thing that it is is a principled, apolitical movement."
And obviously Matthews has not looked at what values the religious right holds. The actions of the religious right, as well as their words, tend to be Machiavellian at best, as well as frequently hateful, disingenuous, and demonizing. What is more, the implication of Matthews' comment is that only "conservative people...believe in values." The rest of the world doesn't? That's a deeply offensive and stupid remark.
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