RELIGIOUS RIGHT FEELS NEGLECTED AGAIN…. I can understand why the religious right movement isn’t happy. Not only has society moved forward and left the movement’s right-wing social standards behind, but their Republican friends haven’t delivered much for them, either.
After religious right groups and leaders elected a GOP majority, Republican policymakers didn’t do much to tackle the issues the movement cares about. Now the party is giving most of its attention to Tea Partiers — many of whom are secular, and don’t care about the culture war — and the religious right is feeling left out again.
Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels (R), a possible presidential contender, went so far as to tell the Weekly Standard that the next president “would have to call a truce on the so-called social issues. … We’re going to just have to agree to get along for a little while.”
It’s just about sent the religious right over the edge.
A skirmish is breaking out on the right just when key components of the Republican coalition — the fiscal, social and national-defense conservatives — appeared to have a tacit agreement to focus on economic issues going into the 2010 midterm elections.
The dispute erupted Thursday when prominent social conservative Tony Perkins challenged Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels to retreat from his stance that abortion should be put on the political back burner until the nation overcomes its fiscal woes.
In his newsletter, the president of the Family Research Council complained that Mr. Daniels, widely considered an A-list contender in the 2012 Republican presidential contest, has become “noncommittal about his role as a pro-life leader.”
Perkins added that the idea of culture-war truce is “astonishing.”
The next step for religious right leaders is threatening to hold their breaths until Americans start paying more attention to their issues.
