Newsview: GOP Pressing Cultural Issues (gays, guns, rights of the unborn)

ASSOCIATED PRESS ^ | Mar 27, 2004 | DAVID ESPO, AP SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

[Liz]

WASHINGTON (AP) -- From gays to guns to the rights of the unborn, Republicans are staging a series of cultural clashes in Congress in the run-up to the fall elections, seeking political advantage as much as legislative accomplishment.

They got a dose of both recently, praise from anti-abortion groups for passage of legislation making it a separate crime to harm a fetus during an attack on a pregnant woman.

"It is encouraging that 61 members of the U.S. Senate are willing to publicly state that a preborn baby is a human being endowed by our Creator with the same inalienable rights guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution as every other American," said the American Life League.

"Pregnant women who have been harmed by violence, and their families, know that there are two victims - the mother and the unborn child - and both victims should be protected by federal law," said President Bush, eager to reassure his conservative political base by signing the measure into law.

Passage was not in doubt, only the size of the split within the Democratic ranks.

[Liz]

Some analysts say Bush is polling better since the release of The Passion of The Christ, a response to Bush's public espousal of his deeply-held Christianity.

A watershed event in the cultural wars is the blockbuster success of Mel Gibson's film. It is lifting the spirits of American voters.

Christians are taking back a culture that has been besieged by Secular Wrecking Crews.

Secular Slobs have strewn the culture with the garbage of moral relativity, situational ethics and relgious hatred.

Up to now, Christians were expected to clean up the secular messes.

That is about to change. The top item on the conservative agenda is getting the Secular Slobolas to mop up.

[Liz]

The biggest mistake Kerry's made to date is to align himaelf with secularists.

Kerry said he is unsure about The Passion, the film hundreds of thousands of Christians are flocking to see. "I don't know," Kerry said when asked if he would see the Mel Gibson film. "I am concerned," Kerry told reporters. "I think we have to be careful," he said echoing secularist critics complaints about Mel Gibson's depiction of Christ's Passion (Reuters, "Democrat Kerry Urges Caution On 'Passion,' 26 February 2004, by Patricia Wilson).

As a presidential candidate, Kerry's comments are fraught with meaning for the future of America. Kerry worships abortion, the lawless homosexual agenda, and the stripping away of every Christian symbol in America.

Kerry kowtows to a secularist minority, the very same groups that have trashed American culture. Kerry is appealing to a ragtag cadre of naysayers in the Hollywood-media axis who are desperately trying to demonize Mel Gibson and the film.

Kerry is appealing to secular Hollywood's fears that they will lose their chokehold on American culture. Secular liberals have vastly profited from the anti-Christian culture and want to keep Christians subdued and their beliefs marginalized.

Kerry's ill-conceived remarks demonstrate that he will strengthen secularist power over Christian America.

[Unam Sanctam]

Believe me, Bush never wanted to have to deal with these divisive cultural issues, but his hand was forced by an activist judiciary and lawless local government who are trying to impose same sex marriage on the country without regard to the democratic process.

[IronJack]

This is actually an excellent strategy. The Dems don't reflect American values; we know that. Now create a public forum where they are forced to either betray their socialist masters or the people who will re-elect them. And let the record speak for itself.

It's a no-lose for the Republicans.

[gramho12]

When I saw this headline I started talking to the PC. When are guns a "cultural" issue? Guess they forgot it's not a cultural issue but a right under the 2nd Amendment. Darn that fussy little document.

[untwist]

Drudge has the following story posted this morning from TIME magazine. Here's a quote:

Just listen to a Vatican official, who is an American: "People in Rome are becoming more and more aware that there's a problem with John Kerry, and a potential scandal with his apparent profession of his Catholic faith and some of his stances, particularly abortion."

As a Catholic, I can tell you the Dems long since lost their grip on the Catholic vote, and they don't care. This cannot be minimalized when you consider also the percentage of Hispanic Catholics. This is a story the mainstream press ignores - they just don't get it.

[Liz]

Amen.

[Liz]

This is actually an excellent strategy.

Thanks. I think so, too. Kerry has aligned himself with secularists who are fast-descending the slippery slope to oblivion. There are any number of ways to stick this secularist-fellater Kerry's face in the mess they've made. Stay tuned to FR. More is on the way.

[IronJack]

I've always maintained that in a fair marketplace, conservative principles will triumph. Only because the media so shade the issues do liberals survive. Tactics like this put the issues in front of Ma and Pa Lunchbox, and force the equivocators to choose sides. We all know liberals have no guts, so they abandon ship at the first sign of a leak. Oh, they never give up, but they have to tread water from time to time. This appears to be one of those times.

[Liz]

Secularists made a huge mistake by sending out the shock troops to bash The Passion. The first foray had ADL Abe claim The Passion was anti-Semitic. That didn't work. NYT's Frank Rich attacked next----said is was fascistic. Then his NYT colleague Maureen Dowd said it was crass. That didn't work. Andy Rooney trashed it on CBS and SNL evilly caricatured it on NBC. That didn't work either.

Newsweek creep Evan Thomas told Imus it was a snuff film. Even so-called conservative Krauthammer bashed it, and Hitchens---in his usual drunken stupor--said it was homo-erotic. Secularists stooped to the lowest levels of condescension to bash Mel, the film, and believers. Nothing worked.

No one will soon forget secularists looking down with haughty condescension on millions of Mr and Mrs Middle-Class Believers lined up at theatres to see The Passion.

And that set the stage for their losing battle in the culture wars. Secularists stupidly polarized the culture into two distinct, opposing camps........elite secularists and masses of believers.

The outcome is not in doubt.

[Liz]

Good news ping: "From gays to guns to the rights of the unborn, Republicans are staging a series of cultural clashes in Congress in the run-up to the fall elections, seeking political advantage as much as legislative accomplishment."

[Just mythoughts]

This is good news, and this is not a typical AP press piece.

Thanks!

[MeekOneGOP]

Passage was not in doubt, only the size of the split within the Democratic ranks.

There will fewer of them to kick around after November 2nd !!

[Qwinn]

"Believe me, Bush never wanted to have to deal with these divisive cultural issues, but his hand was forced by an activist judiciary and lawless local government who are trying to impose same sex marriage on the country without regard to the democratic process."

While that's definetly true of the gay marriage issue, and I haven't noticed any particular Republican push on the gun issue (the AWB just ran out, and libs have actually been surprisingly inactive about reinstating it)... yes, I think it's fair to say that Republicans -have- been very proactive in pushing the pro-life/abortion issue. And I couldn't be happier. In the year 2000 I would never have believed Bush could have been so successful on that front. He has far exceeded my expectations of what was possible.

Qwinn