Conservatism != Libertarianism .
Good Lord, there have been more straw men erected in this thread than you'd see in a drive through Iowa cornfields! I call "no fair"!
Just how many in the "christian right" want to establish a theocracy? 100, 200 people of the 24 million? It's pure hyperbole to say that a marriage definition or protecting the innocent equate to "forcing beliefs on others". By that definition, ANY law would qualify.
I believe that depends on who you ask.
Good Lord, there have been more straw men erected in this thread than you'd see in a drive through Iowa cornfields!
I agree. Like the one about Dick attacking all Christians. Had he done that, I would share the anger of many posters on this thread. But he didn't. He was talking about Dobson and his organization.
It is as fallacious to use an overly broad brush to defend Christians as it is to attack them. The left tries (and tries, and tries...) to paint the Christian right as a monolithic, hive-like entity. This is patently false, but treating a criticism of A Christian as equivalent to criticizing ALL Christians is not the best refutation of that notion. It would be like accusing someone who voices a strong disapproval of Guiliani or McCain of being anti-Republican.
It's pure hyperbole to say that a marriage definition or protecting the innocent equate to "forcing beliefs on others". By that definition, ANY law would qualify.
I totally agree with you regarding protecting the innocent. I believe that the only laws that should exist are those that protect people from other people. But the harsh reality is, many laws exist (or are "pending existence") which DO qualify as "forcing belief". It is easy to see when it comes from the left; it's not so easy when it comes from our side. In all of these cases, the laws are justified using tenuous rationales for protecting some group or another, when in reality they are attempts to make everyone "be like me".
Prior to Nixon it did. Conservatives have always been for less government interference (and by extension, smaller government). Only with the influx of former Souther Democrats have we gotten the "Social Conservative" nanny staters who are little different than their liberal opponents.