“Our culture is superior …”
Patrick Buchanan
Recently, former presidential hopeful Patrick Buchanan implored 2,000 Christian Coalition activists not to forsake their conservative social agenda. However, as typifies his ego and rhetoric, Mr. Buchanan went one step further and suggested that if the Republican Party abandons its previous stand on the abortion issue, “it is time to found a new party.”
Reminiscent of his apocalyptic speech at the 1992 Republican convention, he scoffed at concepts there may be other world cultures equal with that in America. He then went on to say, “Our culture is superior because our religion is Christianity and that is the truth that makes men free.”
Since the ascendancy of his mentor, Ronald Reagan, the GOP has consistently courted support among the nation’s religious right. Shortly after Reagan’s election, a number of fundamentalist Christian ministers, including several well-known televanglists, moved from proselytizing on matters of religious doctrine into the American political arena. Their “causes” suddenly encompassed a wide ranging agenda of social, economic, military and other issues … each of which was predictably grounded in elements of religious doctrine.
For more than a decade, the party’s far right found it had not only a sympathetic ear, but frequently an active supporter in the Oval Office. They wasted no time in leveraging their newly found center of influence and profoundly impacted Congressional legislation, national policy and judicial appointments.
Clearly, this alliance was not a one-way street. The considerable financial (PAC) support and other resources of this socially conservative movement became available to the Republican Party and its “qualified” candidates.
By the late 1980s, however, the populist appeal of their rhetoric began to ebb. Still, their influence with the makers-and-shakers of policy within the Republican Party remained strong. Even GOP politicians philosophically at odds with positions forced on the party by the religious right were rarely willing to risk a confrontation.
This decade of support from the right did not come without cost. Even while holding the White House for twelve years, the GOP’s adoption of the narrow, conservative social agenda of the religious right alienated many individuals and constituencies.
Large numbers of Americans who otherwise supported Republican positions on lower taxes, reduced levels of federal spending and the benefits of a smaller, less intrusive government found themselves in deep philosophical disagreements with the GOP over social and moral issues. While many reluctantly continued to vote Republican, fearing unacceptable Democratic opponents might get elected, thousands of others found new homes in the Libertarian Party, Ross Perot’s United We Stand America, other fledgling third-party movements … and some even in the Democratic Party.
Interestingly, a recent national poll of people describing themselves as religious fundamentalists revealed their prioritizing of concerns tracked the national norm of jobs, the economy, education, health care and crime … with those items generally high on the agendas of religious right activists well down their lists. Like many other causes, their “leadership’s” values and goals do not reflect those of their constituency.
Today, the Republican Party must not overreact and develop new litmus tests for association, participation or candidacy. But, it must walk away from the influences of the religious right and their archaic policies on such issues as birth control, abortion, censorship, homosexuality, sex education, equality for women and respect for the diversity of religious doctrines and cultural heritages which have made America great and free.
Barry Goldwater, Mr. Republican and perhaps the nation’s foremost closet-Libertarian perhaps summed it up best, “The Republican Party should stand for freedom and only freedom. There is no place in this country for practicing religion in politics.”
As for Pat Buchanan, he should probably go off and form a new party. Both he and the GOP will be better off for the split.
