There’s been a trend this week of prominent conservative women writers warning about Rick Santorum’s out-of-mainstream social views. They’ve all touched on a similar concern: Santorum’s past comments on social issues are so extreme that they likely render him unelectable.
This is alarming enough on its own. But the increasingly vocal criticism from right-leaning female pundits also indicates another problem on the horizon for Santorum: can he rely on the conservative media, particularly the women, to have his back on social issues in a general election?
If Santorum secures the nomination, the mainstream media and Democrats will do their best to turn the election into a referendum on birth control and traditional gender roles. At that point it would be up to conservative journalists and commentators to stand up and defend Santorum on these issues. And as of right now, it doesn’t sound like there’d be many women in his corner.
But it’s not just female writers. The conservative media as a whole seems to have little desire to rehash the culture wars. There are plenty of pundits who will vigorously defend Santorum’s pro-life stance. But how many of them want to get into a brawl with the left over why birth control is harmful to society, or why gay marriage is akin to bestiality?
Then there’s the newer generation of conservative journalists and bloggers, which tends to lean more libertarian on social issues. They don’t have the same influence as TV pundits and columnists, but they’re still an integral part of the election coverage. Will they come out and defend Santorum’s comments about how the separation of church and state makes him “want to vomit”? How about his declaration that Satan is responsible for corrupting U.S. society?
It’s hard to imagine many who would. And that’s a serious problem Santorum needs to be prepared to deal with if he ends up securing the nomination.
I knew the link was to Naomi Emory. n nAnd Santorum will rally the other Base while losing women and men in the middle. n nHis urge to retch recurs: his recent comment on the States not having the right to do wrong. n nHis problem, though, is that he's not very smart. The language the orthodox Church uses to discuss homosexuality is not the language he uses. You'll find terms like "misuse of faculties." You'll also find concession to the idea that it can be genetically rooted though further noting that most homosexuality is the result of habituation. IOW, the first urge, while unbidden, hardens into a well-developed appetite through practice. n nNone of this will bring homosexuals to his side, but he's doing the church no favors by his orthodoxy via a disempowered RC version of Mad Magazine. n nI go back and forth on the issue of Gay marriage myself. At last, though, I'm forced to consider the lives of homosexuals I know and those are lives like mine. They are solid citizens and they're assets to the community. If marriage meant what Christian heterosexuals say it means, they'd represent some antithesis, and they don't.
The antithesis is in the definition of Blood Covenant which that one term is a 2 month study course all by itself. While many heterosexual couples DO not keep it – the homosexual couple CAN NOT. Terribly sad, either way.
and, having protected the ability of churches to regulate their own congregational sexual norms this is now urgent public state policy why? and how? heterosexuals are broadspeaking promiscuous–if we could focus on protecting the right of hetero-normative communities of faith to remain so, this might be a less daunting effort than trying to spiritually renew the entire body politic of the United States–Rick is not the best vessel in any event.
Rick's voting record makes him wholey inadequate for the task of helping America stay afloat, and I see no reason in his voting record to assume he considers such a goal at all. n nMeanwhile, the conscience of the nation might be beyond our abilities, but if the Founding Fathers could throw off the British, we can throw off the DIMS – who are bounding abroad from the strict confines of the Constitution by trying to MANDATE that taxpayers by ANY MEANS, whether employers for "medical coverage" or any other premise – after all, we don't haggle that those who buy gasoline are the ones directly paying what is still a TAX on gasoline, they are in fact TAXPAYERS who have to pay it to get a tank of gas — nBut the Government has NO AUTHORITY to issue MANDATES that TAXPAYERS must fund the expense of SOME for the pleasuring of themselves in irresponsible manner.. n nAnd any time TAXPAYERS have to pay the consequences of it in other than CHARITABLE FREEWILL DONATIONS it is very irresponsible, in fact. nIf they cannot pay their own expenses, and they cannot provide for contingencies of the consequences, then it is up to them to get things straightened out – it is NOT the rightful burden of the tax payers. n nYeah, it has always been the natural fallout of communities, and it always will be, and some community-minded folks will always shoulder that burden as much as they can. nThat is the raw humanity of it. nBut it is NOT a rightful province of our Govt to try to provide for it in ways DESIGNED to punish the RESPONSIBLE for the irresponsib8ility of others, and to promote the irresponsibility of some to the greatest explosion of irresponsibility they can muster. nAnd so far, all the govt "HELP" for this problem has increased the problem exponentially about a million times, now.
I know that homosexuals are not just sexual beings. They love without having sex. They grow old together and continue to love each other when they no longer have sex. It's about a lot I'll never understand, and to be honest, I'm thankful I don't understand it. I'm thankful I'm attracted to men, however difficult it may be for men and women to come to honestly love and live with one another. n nHere's where I think the problem is: homosexuality is transgressive and when that kind of trangression is made acceptable and makes its way to the lower classes it's likely to take on destabilizing aspects that we'll then be forced to lament but subsidize. n nSexuality blooms in a kind of chiaroscuro, I think. And when there is no better expression and all are the same, you're likely to see a degradation that's shocking. n nAnd, if I'm right, the degradation will take at least a generation to unfold. I could be wrong, though, and I hope I am.
And since it started in in earnest in the 60's, it's already come further than the average person can comprehend. Especially among those who never heard of the hospital wards, the CDC lawsuits, the cities where AIDS Russian Roulette and the like are huge… etc… n nWhen folks realize the only start it got in America came from the Joseph Stalin Agenda for the Destruction of America – and this is easily confirmed because of the time lines involved… n nYa have to ask yerself – why would Joseph Stalin care about or WANT America to become homosexualized? When HE was one of the Socialist Dictators famous for exterminating such people. nOh, yeah – that Agenda was Clearly Labeled: "FOR THE DESTRUCTION OF AMERICA", wasn't it.
Yeah, that is a ticklish question, isn't it.
Sorry to push your limits. Couldn't resist.
Thanks, Mod, I know this area is very difficult – it SEEMS there is no compassion for others in it, and it is one issue where words are difficult to convey. nSeems our world is now over-run with arguments against self-control and self-discipline. So many millions seem to see no value in that old Refrigerator Magnet from Weightwatchers that read something like: "Don't trade short term pleasure for long term goals"… that went with a teaching that the piece of pie in the refrigerator was too short-term a pleasure to sacrifice for the long term goal of healthy fitness.
***Then there’s the newer generation of conservative journalists and bloggers, which tends to lean more libertarian on social issues.*** n nThis is certainly true. And it's also why most conservatives are becoming as disillusioned with the "conservative" media as we are with the liberal media. n nIf we want to know what liberals think about social issues, we can ask them directly. Why would we want to get liberal opinions on social issues from libertarians in the "conservative" media? n nMost of these young libertarians will eventually forsake the right-wing for the left-wing media anyway (better job opportunities) so we can just wait to hear from them after they've changed sides.
Case in point — David Brock. n nOTOH, "If you aren't a Liberal when you are 20, you have no heart, nif you aren't a conservative when you are 40, you have no brain." n nI wonder where this newer generation will be when they have kids of their own, and it isn't them having an abortion but their *daughter* having one….
Well, these women will need to decide if they want to obsess over issues on which they disagree with Santorum and which, pace the MSM, are essentially dead letters or if they want to help prevent the re-election of someone who will continue to dismantle the the military, surrender U.S. interests and values world wide, continue to destroy the economy and put an end to constitutional, somewhat limited government. n n
As for the social issues themselves I tend to take a traditionalist/libertarian perspective. Obviously, the marriage-based 2 parent family is an absolutely vital foundational stone of western society and its weakening has all sorts of negative social and economic consequences. On the other hand I'm rather skeptical of government inducements to encourage specific relationships, including the child credit. I'm inclined to support some sort of sanction for same sex unions but oppose having the benefits of marriage conferred on essentially different relationships of less value to society. At the very least the decision to do so should be made through democratic process rather than by judicial fiat. I know, like and respect a number of homosexuals but thats neither here nor there. n nIn the end I want someone in the White House who will keep my regulations to a minimum, my taxes low, my military adequately armed in support of a principled, prudent and robust foreign policy and my judges constitutionalist. If that person happens to conduct thrice weekly homosexual orgies in the White House I might find the arrangement less than optimal but not prohibitive.
I wonder if you would feel you need to "sanction" it if your child decided to become a crackhead slave of a dope peddler. Or a gang member thief who robs all your neighbors and friends and relatives. n nWhy do we feel it is "compassion" to "sanction" something so destructive it cannot be contained inside that house where it is taking place, and not only destroys those people, but has a horrible impact on untold numbers around them. nAND FORECLOSES THEM HAVING A CONSTRUCTIVE AND HAPPY FUTURE. In most cases. nAll anyone looks at anymore is the nice polite outer Public shell – and they are all shutting their eyes to the underside that has exploded in the last few decades. Sure, it was always there, just as the seemy underside of heterosexuality was – but neither of those messes were nearly so bad before all the Public permissiveness became seen as "so compassionate and "forgiving" " while actually feeding the problems and doing nothing to alleviate the self-condemnation. nAll I know is that when I was doing things I knew were wrong, not this but enough of my own – I am so glad I never ran into those who so "compassionately understood" my "human" side, and I had to deal with my consequences head on and decide if I wanted to keep doing that to other people, and having those building catalogues of memories all my entire life! nNo wonder the suicide rate is exploding. n nSure, nearly everyone has friends or family directly affected by this and you want to be accepting of your family and friends – and I think we should be – but the POLITICS of "NORMALIZING" it is entirely different. nSome of you are outraged I say this, but who of you gathers around the table discussing what plans you have to help the children strive towards a laudable goal in their life and says, "Hey, you know so-and-so worked hard to become a doctor, lawyer, college professor, small business owner, and what they are doing looks like something you would really love and thrive in – why don't you look into how they did it? And ends up referring them to the homosexual lifestyle? No, nobody does that. But in order to justify their own friend or relative, you will get all up in it if someone says something negative about it, and say , "HEY, THERE IS NOTHING WRONG WITH IT" referring to someone not of your own, and ignoring all that your own family has gone through, fighting the illnesses, and the heartbreaks and things you know in your guts are the wasted talents and callings that probably will never be, because of a fascination with something as deadly as those snakes that hypnotize their victims before swallowing them whole. nYou don't have to get ugly about it – yeah, plenty of you think I am being a lot too unnecessarily ugly, I know – but you don't have to, to just NOT condone something you know has all THAT heartache. nSanction is a word that has a meaning that simply does not belong to anything on the list of goals of Joseph Stalin designed to help destroy this nation.
I don't know, a lot of right wing pundits have been striving mightily hard to defend him, sometimes by agreeing with him but more often by attacking the media and avoiding discussing what he actually said. It hasn't been very impressive.
Dorothy Rabinovitz, Jennifer Rubin, and Kimberly Strassel are three of those all-knowing "conservative women" upon whom Alana Goodman relies for her opinions. What they're doing to Rick Santorum, they did to Sarah Palin. What's with Jewish "conservative women" that they can trash Roman Catholic and Evangelical Christians and expect full Christian compliance and support of their agenda?
And what is then the "Jewish conservative women agenda," bombing Tehran with kosher morning-after pills?
I didn't even know Kimberly Strassel was Jewish. Is Mr. Graves basing that on her name or has he researched her background for evidence of "Jewishness"? n nAnd what is he quite saying, exactly? That the price of support for Israel is banning all contraception as well as abortion in cases of rape, incest and life of the mother? Supporting a candidate who finds the idea of the separation of church and state vomit-inducing? n nOne has to hope we can find a more pluralistic candidate who won't hold us to that sort of blackmail.
You'd think even Santorum would be tempted to favor birth control among Iranian mullahs.
Jennifer Rubin = David Brooks in a dress = worthlessness as a "conservative."
Not fair at all. She is vastly harsher on Obama than David Brooks ever would dream of being. You simply don't like the fact that she's socially moderate.
Totally fair description on my part of someone who like Brooks, got a job with an elite media outlet as the token "conservative" that the elite media could count on to bash the mainstream conservative movement and give their butts cover on the issue of media bias among other things. n nYou're giving me a nice reminder BTW of why social conservatives like me have a low threshold of patience for social "moderates" who keep expecting us to roll over and support "moderates" for the sake of winning elections (even though such "moderates" usually get their butts kicked and if they get into power they do things like come up with the likes of David Souter for the Supreme Court), but who always run high tail and sit on their hands if a social conservative gets nominated.
Bush also appointed Thomas. The son appointed Roberts and Alito. Reagan, the "social conservative," appointed Scalia, Kennedy and O'Connor.
Souter came to us courtesy of the Democrats favorite Republican on the Iran-Contra Committee, Warren Rudman and Romney backer John Sununu, both of them social moderates on all levels.
Generally, when GOP presidents have to deal with Democratic senates, we get bad justices (exception: Clarence Thomas). When they deal with GOP senates. they get good ones (exception: O'Connor). n nIf the GOP candidate wins this year, they will have a GOP senate.
You forgot the spineless conduct of fink "moderates" like John Warner of Virginia, who opposed Bork, and also worked to get a Democrat elected to the Senate in 1994 when his establishment candidate wasn't nominated by the GOP. n nBottom line is that if you really have any genuine desire to see Obama defeated, you'll realize that holding to condescending views of social conservatives and their beliefs and echoing left-wing talking points about them is only going to guarantee you four more years of Obama and as far as I'm concerned you'll have deserved it in spades.
And Jennifer Rubin is still a phony conservative who just plays one for the eltie media who signs her paycheck, just like Brooks.
I don't think that gets to the heart of the matter of what's riling Mr. Graves.
What you seem to be saying is that if they don't mirror your views they are wrong.
I am female, and very Conservative – but I am not a columnist or journalist – and I am spreading the word as big time as I can to NOT VOTE SANTORUM. n nBUT NOT because of his "CONSERVATIVE STANCES" that he has buried somewhere except on the Campaign Trail speeches!!!!!! n nI won't vote for him, because of his LIBERAL VOTING RECORD and the assurance that voting record gives me that there is NOTHING that Santorum isn't willing to sell out on, NO MATTER WHAT with sufficient provocation. n nAm still wondering WHAT the "SUFFICIENT PROVOCATION" was to get him to vote: nTo impose a uniform Federal mandate on states to force them to allow convicted rapists, arsonists, drug kingpins, and all other ex-convicts to vote in Federal elections. n nEXPLAIN THE TEAM PLAYER ATTITUDE for which he voted THIS: n- twice to make it illegal to sell a gun without a secure storage or safety device n- for Federal funding for anti-gun education programs in schools. n n- against the Conventional Trident Missile Program n- for taxpayer funding of the National Endowment for the Arts. n- against a 10% cut in the budget for National Endowment for the Arts. n n- to exempt IRS union representative from criminal ethics laws. n- to strike marriage penalty tax relief and instead provide fines on tobacco companies. n nIN OTHER WORDS, THIS LADY is NOT going to vote for a Democrat Marxist just because someone allowed him to slap an (R) after his name. nHe can Kiss My Grits – it ain't happening on this Green Earth! n
Do you offer your grits straight, with butter, with molasses, or with red eye gravy?
Never had anyone ask that question before. I hate to say this to such a friendly question, but under the circumstances under which i offered my grits, sad to say, it is most likely with a baseball bat to someone else's face! n nI get a little feisty with folks like Santorum that I think are more destructive than they are helpful to America. n nTo certain others, it would prolly be butter, syrup, sweet cream and a cherry, and a rasher of bacon and eggs on the side. I haven't had enough red gravy in my life to be much taken with it. For a Southern gal, I didn't even know that to be a Southern dish til WELL into my adult years. Ain't that sad.
"Will they come out and defend Santorum’s comments about how the separation of church and state makes him “want to vomit”? How about his declaration that Satan is responsible for corrupting U.S. society?" n nIf Alana Goodman can quote Rick Santorum in full context to substantiate her assertions, I'll pay attention. If she can't or won't, she'll prove herself to be a rookie blogger who isn't ready for prime time.
A buddy of mine ran into Satan at Hialeah Park. Satan was a little puzzled about the whole deal: n"Jezzie and our gang used to take the waters, back, what was it, early 20th, late 19th century, to see what's what, high and low, big city resorts, out to one crossroad prairie hardscrabble towns and one way or the other we could always count on three things: a church, a saloon, and a whorehouse. Never came across heaven in the lower forty-eight and damn few saints to tempt anywheres in between."
He said JFK's speech promising to be independent of the Catholic Church as President made him want to vomit. I'm sure it did.
I want to know if Santorum is so concerned about the corruption of American Society, how come he voted that felons should get their voting rights AUTOMATICALLY restored – instead of the Constitutional provision that AFTER THEY PROVE THEMSELVES FIT RESIDENTS they can APPLY to have them restored upon offering testimony showing his or her good faith efforts in that endeavor. nThat would seem a MIGHTY poor start to fight off corruption, in my book.
There is a religion-neutral Federalist position that supports him — and I kinda think that is where Santorum is going. The First Amendment was NEVER intended to separate church and state, it was ONLY intended to prevent the Federal govt from telling the STATES what church THEY could establish. n nJohn Adams' father-in-law was a minister, Adams was a very pious man. The Puritan/Congregational church remained the established taxpayer-supported church in Massachusetts until 1855. The First Amendment was passed in 1789 — do the math. n nMassachusetts and Virginia were afraid of the other imposing stuff on them, and all the other states were afraid of both of them. With the First Amendment, each state got to keep its own religion, and if you look at the *original* Massachusetts Constitution, written by John Adams in 1780, you will not see this wall of separation. n nNow what the 14th Amendment's "equal protection" would have done is an open guess, but there never was a wall of separation– until 1855, the governance of the town and the governance of the church was held in ONE meeting, combined.
You want Conservative Judges – but I cannot tell from your post who your favored candidate is. n nI know Santorum's voting record is AGAINST everything you listed that YOU are FOR. n nFor instance: nNominations Santorum voted FOR: nVoted for Richard Paez to the 9th Curcuit (cloture) nVoted for Sonia Sotomayor, Circuit Judge nVoted for Richard Holbrooke to be Ambassador to the UN nVoted for Margaret Morrow to be District Judge nVoted twice for Marsha Berzon to the 9thg Circuit nVoted for Mary McLaughlin to be District Judge nVoted for Tim Dyk to be District Judge nVoted for James Brady to be District Judge n nAll I know to do is pray harder than I've ever prayed in my life – God is the only Answer I can see on my blue horizon! Psalm 91 over America.
Our government is more intrusive than ever with more on the way. The national debt is increasing at unsustainable rates. These are the issues that will bring success for Republicans in the election races this year. Turning the conversation toward social issues is a distraction which will only benefit the Democrats. Republicans should refuse to be drawn off-topic.
If Santorum gets the Republican nomination for President, the fall campaign will not be about Obama's Presidency. It will be about Santorum's religion. There hasn't been a candidate since William Jennings Bryan (think Scopes trial) as radical on religion as Santorum — and he can't stop talking about it. Obama just lied about the amount of oil the US potentially has and suggests windmills … and Santorum wants to vomit about the separation of church and state? This is a losing proposition.
You are right on target here. We must all remember that there is one proven fanatic in this race, and right now he's sitting at a big desk in the Oval Office.
Santorum would get thrashed in the general. He's OC about vaginas, and frothing at the mouth to nuke Iran. He's issued broadsides against Protestant denominations, and moderate/independents would run away from him like wilderbeests on the rampage. He'd be lucky to get 20% of the vote.