I have come across a concise, thorough, and somewhat entertaining description of Republican Party behavior I've observed over the years regarding the most dear aspects of social conservatism. It comes from a piece on the Forward Progressives website (linked below) about why a wave of anti-abortion laws sprang from GOP lawmakers. Now, Republicans have always talked a big talk on being "pro-life" but have rarely matched their talk with legislation; even Saint Ronnie failed to push anti-abortion bills beyond the telepromter. The rise of the tea party has led the GOP to do more than sprinkle the right buzzwords into speeches, and the tail started wagging the GOP dog:
"[T]he Republican Party knew that so long as they kept paying lip service to anti-abortion ideals and made random speeches on the floor of the House or Senate that activists liked, they could continue to count on the votes of March for Life protesters and the rest of the religious right. This allowed them to continue to not look like extremists to moderate voters and run as moderate conservatives while getting votes from the party fringes.
"Then President Obama was elected in 2008 and the far right had an absolute emotional meltdown as they made a run on guns and ammunition. Suddenly, it wasn’t enough just to be a Republican. Almost overnight you also had to be a Republican who actually introduced anti-abortion laws, hated liberals, and loved Jesus and Fox News more than the other candidates – and by Wal-Mart White Jesus, you better have an AR-15 in your photo ops. No more of those wimpy bolt-action hunting rifles or skeet shotguns, you need to have an AR-15 in one hand and a King James Bible in the other."
www.forwardprogressives.com/congress-pushing-new-anti-abortion-laws-answer-simple/#sthash.oRuv1Of9.dpuf
"[T]he Republican Party knew that so long as they kept paying lip service to anti-abortion ideals and made random speeches on the floor of the House or Senate that activists liked, they could continue to count on the votes of March for Life protesters and the rest of the religious right. This allowed them to continue to not look like extremists to moderate voters and run as moderate conservatives while getting votes from the party fringes.
"Then President Obama was elected in 2008 and the far right had an absolute emotional meltdown as they made a run on guns and ammunition. Suddenly, it wasn’t enough just to be a Republican. Almost overnight you also had to be a Republican who actually introduced anti-abortion laws, hated liberals, and loved Jesus and Fox News more than the other candidates – and by Wal-Mart White Jesus, you better have an AR-15 in your photo ops. No more of those wimpy bolt-action hunting rifles or skeet shotguns, you need to have an AR-15 in one hand and a King James Bible in the other."
www.forwardprogressives.com/congress-pushing-new-anti-abortion-laws-answer-simple/#sthash.oRuv1Of9.dpuf
