I'm hearing a lot -- especially, though not exclusively, from pundits opposed to the Federal Marriage Amendment -- that religious conservatives are not merely disappointed in the failure of the FMA to pass, but are angry at the White House and the GOP leadership for not placing a higher priority on promoting the amendment.

Take this example.

Last week's Senate vote on the proposed constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage—along with President Bush's televised endorsement of the measure—were seen as part of a Republican campaign to mollify its restive conservative base before the midterm elections. But for many conservative Christian activists, the White House did not do enough to build support for the Marriage Protection Amendment, either in the Senate or in the public, before it ultimately failed last week.

Some conservatives say they're puzzled by Bush, who appears genuinely enthusiastic about the issue in his public statements but has nonetheless treated it as a low priority in his second term. "The president gave great comments the other day," says Tom McClusky, chief lobbyist for the Family Research Council, a top conservative advocacy group. "Yet if he truly believed the [gay marriage] threat is there, we are disappointed that he did not do more or even equal to what he did last time."

That is all true, but not very realistic, from where I sit. The reality is that the situation today is very different from two years ago, and the president simply lacks the political capital to spend on an amendment that was doomed to fail in Congress. Scandal, dissension, Katrina, gas prices and the prolonged War on Terror have sapped the popularity of George W. Bush, and there are simply more pressing issues to fight. What's more, I believe that religious conservatives (I'm not one, though I am both conservative and religious) are implicitly aware of this situation, even if some of their leaders have a tunnel vision focussed on social issues.

Take James Dobson as an example.

While publicly praising Bush for supporting the amendment, conservative evangelical activists have also vented frustrations. In a radio interview last week with White House Press Secretary Tony Snow, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson asked what the president was doing to win support for the amendment, which required a two-thirds majority to pass the Senate. "Is he working the hill?" Dobson inquired. "Is he calling?"

When Snow responded that he didn't know, Dobson cut him off. "That's unfortunate," he snapped. "Because when Lyndon Johnson wanted the civil rights legislation, he didn't have the votes...and he made it happen.... He used the bully pulpit to make it happen. President Bush has not done that yet."

What Dobson overlooks is that Johnson had something that Bush does not -- a loyal opposition that was, in fact, more supportive of his position on civil rights than Johnson's Democrat Party. In addition, Johnson needed merely a majority to pass the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act and other legislation of that era, while Bush needs a 2/3 majority in both houses of Congress to pass the FMA. Why waste political capital reaching for an unreachable goal? It does not matter that every marriage-related proposition put before the people in the last few years has passed by landslide proportions when the Democrats are committed to acting contrary to the will of the people as expressed by the people at the ballot box.

There are those who talk of social conservatives walking away from the GOP. But I must ask where they would go. To the Democrats, who label them bigoted, hate-filled, and unAmerican for their support of traditional marriage? To a third party that lacks the critical mass to play more than the spoiler's role on the national stage? Or back into the wilderness of pious apoliticism, with the clear understanding that secularist America will go to Hell in it own red, white, and blue handbasket?

Like it or not, the last three decades have seen the fortunes of the GOP and the Religious Right bound more and more tightly together. In a number of states, it is that faction of the party that is ascendant. To surrender that influence over the agenda of the GOP would be to consigne the Federal Marriage Amendment -- and much of the rest of the social conservative platform -- to irrelevancy and oblivion.

Posted by: Greg at 11:29 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
Post contains 739 words, total size 5 kb.