Posted on 03/28/2009 8:27:41 PM PDT by Alex Murphy
Just as news breaks that political fundraising is down for both parties, Republicans have lost one of their more generous contributors.
In what one might call a biblical move, Christian philanthropist Howard Ahmanson -- one of three major funders of the campaign for California's Proposition 8, which banned same-sex marriages -- has abandoned the GOP for the Democratic Party.
No one ever said the multimillionaire isn't idiosyncratic.
In a rare interview Thursday, Ahmanson shared some of his thoughts about why he switched parties. In a word, taxes.
Specifically, he was offended by the California Republican Party's insistence during a recent state budget battle that there would be no tax increases for any reason, no matter what. "They're providing one issue, and it's just a very silly issue," Ahmanson told me by telephone.
So, without fanfare, Ahmanson printed out an online form and mailed in his Democratic Party registration. Thus far, he's heard nothing back, but confesses to hoping he'll receive a little card or something.
Ahmanson, who was born to and inherited great wealth, has spent a lifetime trying to figure out what to do with his good fortune. It has been, at times, a burden of guilt, complicated by a lonely childhood. He also has Tourette's syndrome, which has contributed to his reclusiveness.
Now 58, Ahmanson is recognized as one of the nation's leading evangelical Christians and one of conservatism's most reliable supporters, though he is hardly a Republican talking-point man. He follows his own script and has parted company with social conservatives before. He thinks those who argue for school prayer, for instance, are confusing the moral with the religious. Morality is how we relate to one another, he says. Religion is how we relate to God -- "and it's not the government's business."
One can't mention Ahmanson
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I think a lot more folks need to bail out of the Republican Party...
Except that without a religious understanding of God morality doesn't mean much. Wish I'd been born rich and had nothing better to do than contemplate shallow thoughts.
Regardless, I wouldn’t switch to the worst party. What? Going from the frying pan into the fire is plain stupid.
I left the GOP as well.
I'm too conservative for them.
Of course taxes are a silly issue to this twit. He's a multimillionaire. Why doesn't he just sign over his inheritance to the State of California, to pay taxes for those who can't? Good riddance.
Wow, what an idiot.
“I think a lot more folks need to bail out of the Republican Party...”
Sure, but not to go to an organization that is worse!
So do I, most definitely -- but the problem is, which direction should they "bail"? Further to the left like Ahmanson did, or toward a more right-leaning party (Constitution, Libertarian, American Independent, etc.) ? I hope it would be the latter.
Relations between a human act and the final destiny of a human being. It is the norm of behavior that flows from each person's ultimate end, which is the possession of God in the beatific vision.
Depending on what is conceived to be this final destiny, morality will be determined accordingly. Since Catholic Christianity believes that this destiny is heaven, a human act is either good or bad according as it leads to or detracts a person from his or her heavenly goal. The moral norm of human acts, therefore, consists in their aptitude at leading one to that end. Such an aptitude cannot be created by the human will, nor is it entirely at the disposition of some arbitrary divine freedom. It flows necessarily from the nature of God, from the human nature elevated by grace, and from the nature of the acts themselves. Hence the norm or morality contains precepts that transcend every legislative will. The acts related to them are said to have an intrinsic (essential) morality of good or evil. Extrinsic morality, on the other hand, is external to this built-in relationship between action and purpose; they depend exclusively on the free dictate of the legislator.
And the dimocrat party practices morality? What a howl!
How about moral relativism?
That’s about where I placed him.
Or moral subjectivism.
Sorry, but I have problems believing “true Christians” can support the party of abortion.
Since you want to leave the Republican Party for Obama’s Marxist Democrats, don’t let the door hit you in the ass when you leave.
At one time my wife’s parents were top shelf GOP donors, today they are top shelf Dem Donors.
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