The "principles" of the Religious Right

Social conservatives have no political principles except the desire to control the lives of others. For instance when there was movement, in the 60s, to undo the mandated racial segregation in the South the social conservative, or what is called the Religious Right today, chimed on about “state’s rights” and that this was not a federal issue.

So they campaigned hard for the “state’s rights” issue and proclaimed themselves dyed-in-the-wool federalists advocating the separation of powers. Right up until the gay marriage issue arose. Then they were advocates of top-down control, constitutional amendments controlling state choice, etc.

Not only that but when they needed allies they appeal to black fundamentalists and suddenly presented themselves as defenders of the legacy of Martin Luther King. Of course these same people previously claimed King was a communist and part of the revolution to overthrow Christian America. Now you have assholes, and I can’t think of a more accurate description, like Lou Sheldon saying things like, “the freedom train to Selma didn’t stop at Sodom.”

Funny that, some of the strongest defenders of legal equality for blacks were gay while the main opponents were the Religious Right. The Ku Klux Klan was filled with fundamentalist ministers. The White Citizen’s Councils were hard core Christianists. What started the entire Christian school movement in America? It wasn’t sex education and the lack of mandatory prayer. They may have influenced a few but the main impetus for the fundamentalists school movement was desegregation of schools in the South.

Once blacks were allowed to attend local schools the Religious Right pulled their children out of the system by the tens of thousands and started segregated Christian schools. But today they found a new group to hate so suddenly they want black Americans to believe they are their new best friends. They are unprincipled hate mongers in reality they just found a new group to hate.

So lets go back to the gay marriage issue. The legislature of Massachusetts just killed a measure that was meant to repeal gay marriage there. So the theocrats are fuming. They say they want a public referendum on gay marriage. But do they?

Exactly what do they want? When a court rules that equality is guaranteed in the constitution the Republican and their Religious Right allies say that this is ignoring the legislative process and they want the legislature to decide. So then you have California where a pro-marriage law granting equality to gays was passed by the legislature. But the Republican governor vetoed it saying this is a matter for the courts to decide.

The Massachusetts legislature has rejected a ploy to ban gay marriage. But you don’t hear the Religious Right saying that this is something the legislature should decide. Now they want a public vote instead. If legislatures were passing gay marriage laws and judges were ruling them unconstitutional the Religious Right would be the biggest fans of “activist” judges.

One moment they are for state’s rights and federalism and the next they want federal control over marriage. One day they hate blacks and the next day they are their new best friend but only to gang up on gays. One day they say the legislatures should decide then the next day they want courts to decide, then the next day they want a referendum. In fact they are not committed to either a legislative process, state’s rights, federalism, referenda, or any particular system of governance. Those are smokescreen’s. What they want is a theocratic result and they don’t care how they get it. They will manipulate, distort, lie, twist, fabricate, smear, harass, cheat or do anything else necessary to get what they want. And then they pretend they are the defenders of morality.