Posted on 11/07/2012 6:07:12 AM PST by marshmallow
Guys – have a quick puff of your joint before heading down the aisle with your boyfriend. In addition to re-electing Obama, various American states voted to legalise dope and gay marriage. OK, so they weren't necessarily the same states, but you get the picture. Last night was a victory for secular liberal America – or, to put it another way, America's emerging secular liberal majority. The United States is still pious by European standards, but the gap is narrowing every year.
You cannot visit American bookshops without being struck by the popularity of atheist cheerleaders or agnostic self-help gurus; when I meet a young New Yorker or Californian I assume – as I would in Britain – that they don't go to church, have liberal positions on abortion and homosexuality and generally despise the conservative religious activism that, until so recently, had the power to elect presidents.
Two points worth noting about this election. First, the Religious Right – and how dated that phrase already sounds – united around a candidate who, by most standards, is not even a Christian.
(Excerpt) Read more at blogs.telegraph.co.uk ...
The big tent is larger then you think and can take in both types of conservatives
“...Catholics are not a cohesive block because coinservatism has been defined so as to clash with much of Catholic doctrine. We Catholics have effectively allowed the American political system to divide the Church against itself. Although the Democratic Party has increasingly aligned itself with positions that are in direct conflict with Catholic teaching, the Republican Party does not represent a strong moral alternative.”
Very interesting. I am an evangelical and have come to very similar conclusions about these two political gangs. I wish there were fewer positions staked out, and that those positions were actually held. Not going to happen though.
True Catholics (who are also Evangelical) and Evangelicals have much more in common doctrinally and culturally than we do with the world. I think there is a political opportunity for a Christian Party, comprised of Catholics, Evangelicals, and orthodox Protestants who share the fundamental values of subsidiarity, respect for life and traditional family, non-governmental charity, honesty, integrity and truth.
I think it would be very workable. Every party is a coalition of sorts. The doctrinal differences would be far less significant that the coalition of freaks that have assembled as the Democrat Party.
GM is undead, so is Al Qaeda, and the report of the Religious Right’s death was...exaggerated.
In other words, your post advocates redefining "conservatism" to include liberal ideals that this site derides. Why are you posting here? Democratic Underground awaits you!
I don't get what your complaint is. The way I look at it, over 60% of Americans voted yesterday in support of 80% of Catholic social doctrine, at least as your post defines it. For all intents and purposes, the majority of your views won last night.
"`Heaven and earth shall pass away, but my words shall not pass away.'
The civilisation of antiquity was the whole world: and men no more dreamed of its ending than of the ending of daylight. They could not imagine another order unless it were in another world. The civilisation of the world has passed away and those words have not passed away.
In the long night of the Dark Ages feudalism was so familiar a thing that no man could imagine himself without a lord: and religion was so woven into that network that no man would have believed they could be torn asunder. Feudalism itself was torn to rags and rotted away in the popular life of the true Middle Ages; and the first and freshest power in that new freedom was the old religion. Feudalism had passed away, and the words did not pass away.
The whole medieval order, in many ways so complete and almost cosmic a home for man, wore out gradually in its turn: and here at least it was thought that the words would die. They went forth across the radiant abyss of the Renaissance and in fifty years were using all its light and learning for new religious foundations, new apologetics, new saints.
It was supposed to have been withered up at last in the dry light of the Age of Reason; it was supposed to have disappeared ultimately in the earthquake of the Age of Revolution.
Science explained it away; and it was still there. History disinterred it in the past; and it appeared suddenly in the future. To-day it stands once more in our path; and even as we watch it, it grows."
There is a lot you don't get. You also don't get to define conservative orthodoxy. In the hierarchy of Catholic values are the six non-negotables, that all lost yesterday. But Catholic social teaching also includes the eight Beatitudes, which I'm sure many "conservatives" would be surprised to learn are not welcome on Free Republic or the Religion Forum. This rejection of Catholic doctrine by both parties too often results in an unacceptable dilemma for many Catholics which results in them staying home on election day. Catholics no not owe either party their votes any more than Tea Party members do. However since a united Catholic block would dominate either party any party courting their votes would have to make some concessions. Your contempt for anything Catholic only reinforces the old saying that we get the government we deserve. That is especially true in your case.
Peace be with you.
Wow, that was channeling Ted Kennedy and any other anti-American lefty.
No wonder Catholics embrace the left.
Evangelicals voted republican by 79%, an astounding figure.
They aren’t the problem, the left wing voters are.
Where does this idea come from, that there is a "mythical Christian Right", out of which "half didn't bother to vote" in this election? I've heard this three or four times today.
Those ‘ads’ would have to come from the GOP and perhaps they don’t really oppose pretty much anything that Obama is for... so there you go. It is not the conservative people, it is the party that continues to say they support them... they lie.
Yes they have. I found a used book store in our mall (this mall is struggling and taking in small businesses instead of the usual chains). I found some wonderful books for the kids in the family and for ourselves. Many are no longer in print.. found a great one about Ghost Towns of the West, filled with wonderful photos of areas that are long gone.
Right back at you. You are one more RINO cannibalizing the base. You won’t have a base in a few years... but we will.
Love your comment. There are a whole lot of us in California, stranded on the Democrat prison-plantation. We have been waiting since the mid 1990’s for the GOP to give a good rat’s ass about us.
Your post smells of TROLL.
You could only wish.
Not this Catholic and not my friends either. Funny... the Catholic kids that turned evangelicals in my family are all rabid Obama lovers....in laws of theirs also - States they live in - Washington, Missouri, Oregon.
Yeah, great personal anecdote.
Romney received 79% of the Evangelical vote, and 48% of the Roman Catholic vote.
I guess for the Catholics the "social justice" vote outweighed the "pro-life" vote. Wonder what the priests/bishops have prepared for sermons this Sunday.
I think Mexican Catholics most likely voted for Obama. Have to say my Mexican American friends who are first or second generation born here (50 yrs old and up) voted Romney.
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