re: #319 Soona’

So you’re ready to kick out some of the more staunch supportors of conservatism just because they have a belief in something in which you don’t approve. I don’t mind Charles keeping us up to date because the controversy doesn’t scare me. What does bother me are people who seem troubled over what is happening in our government right now, but are willing to do exactly what the zero was being accused of during the campaign; throwing people under the bus for political expediency.

Yes, I would be quite willing to throw people out for not supporting Constitutional principles. But this is not a question of throwing people out, I don’t have that power and in fact almost nobody does. The question is whether we willl permit our movement to be dominated by an ideology that would tar us all with pseudoscience and lunatic conspiracy theories (and the ID movement IS a conspiracy theory). Calling these people “staunch supporters of conservatism” raises another crucial question, the very nature of, and definition of conservatism itself. The media would have us believe otherwise, but the Evangelical position on government is simply not the same as the Enlightenment-based principles of modern political conservatism. Goldwater was horrified at the growing dominance of the GOP by the religious faction, and he would be turning over in his grave today.
As for electoral advantage in tossing the religious element, this would actually work the other way around, at least in the short term. It is rather amusing that you would sneer at me for my willingness to sacrifice this short-term advantage, given the refusal of many religious voters to support McCain for his lack of purity. It might be a stretch to suggest that this put Obama in office, but not too much of a stretch given the small margin in the election.

In any case, the extra votes are not worth the long-term damage of becoming a permanently marginal party with no possibility of majority appeal. The bottom line is that this would leave the media/left coalition without effective opposition, a prospect almost too horrible to contemplate.
To me personally, this would be nothing less than a new Dark Age.

Note also that Obama and other libs seem to be reaching out to Evangelicals. I think this reflects a long term strategy on the left. Whether it will work is open to question but it is obviously about electoral expediency. Ironically, this was the real reason for the original shotgun wedding of political and religious conservatism in the late 70s.