Notes From D.R. | Random Thoughts on the Passing Scene

So what did religious and social conservatives get out of supporting the Republican Party all these years?

Let’s see…abortion? Still legal. Gay marriage? Almost no one under the age of 35 seems to be against it. Less secularism in American culture? Please! American culture is far more secular now than it was in 1980.

Other than Supreme Court Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, John Roberts and Samuel Alito, it’s hard to see what goodies religious and social conservatives were able to extract from the GOP. The “Religious Right” has far less power than it did three decades ago; in fact, looking back over the decades, one has to question how much real, tangible power religious and social conservatives really had in the GOP.

The “Christian right” certainly played a significant role in Ronald Reagan’s defeat of Jimmy Carter. However, Reagan focused more on anti-Communism than he did on anti-secularism during his eight years in office. In fact, Reagan arguably double-crossed his religious- and social-conservative allies in 1981, when he nominated Sandra Day O’Connor to replace Potter Stewart on the US Supreme Court (Jerry Falwell famously noted that “Every good Christian ought to be concerned” with the nomination because O’Connor did not appear to be an opponent of the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling). While Reagan later appointed Scalia, whose legal views were more in line with those of religious and social conservatives, he followed that appointment up with Anthony Kennedy (a substitute for Robert Bork, whose appointment to the High Court was shot down by the left in 1987). Kennedy’s legal views, of course, were quite similar to those of O’Connor’s.

(It’s interesting to note that before he became President, Reagan, the alleged slave of evangelicals and social conservatives, had a high-profile split with the “Christian right.” In 1978, Reagan came out against California’s Proposition 6, a ballot initiative that would have prevented homosexuals from being employed in the California public schools. Although religious and social conservatives supported the “Briggs Initiative”, Reagan felt that Proposition 6 was an improper infringement on privacy rights. Looking back, this was an early signal that Reagan would not necessarily march in lockstep with the social right.)

George H. W. Bush, to put it politely, didn’t give a whit about the “Christian right” agenda during his four years in office, becoming obsessed with foreign-policy considerations instead. Bush nominated David Souter to the bench in 1990 largely on the recommendation of liberal New Hampshire Senator Warren Rudman, a decision that religious and social conservatives rue to this day. While Bush later nominated Thomas, whose views were closer to those of Scalia, Bush did little else to advance the social right’s cause. While religious and social conservatives weren’t thrilled when Bill Clinton defeated Bush in 1992, they weren’t shedding many tears for the ousted President either.

The social right’s influence began to wane during the Clinton 1990s: though the Republicans managed to recapture the House and Senate in 1994, they did so without specific appeals to religious and social conservatives (though the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” controversy of 1993 certainly fueled the social right’s anti-Clinton anger). However, religious and social conservatives were horrified by Clinton’s actions in the Lewinsky scandal—and Karl Rove exploited their enraged energy, positioning George W. Bush as a candidate who would restore morality and honor to the White House.

The social right put Bush into office, re-elected him in 2004, and staunchly defended him even when his actions did not merit a logical defense. For their efforts, they were rewarded with the appointments of Roberts and Alito. What else did they get, besides Bush’s vetoes of the Stem Cell Research Enhancement Acts of 2005 and 2007? Not much. Bush and the GOP-led Congress became involved in the Terri Schiavo case because of the concerns of the social right, but the rest of the country saw the GOP’s involvement as illogical and illegal (the Schiavo matter, the fallout from Hurricane Katrina, the length and cost of the Iraq War, and the financial meltdown of 2008 were the four factors that fueled Barack Obama’s victory). Social conservatives, like the conservative pundit class, embraced Bush even when it may have been wiser to let him go. Even after it became obvious that Bush didn’t know what the hell he was doing, the social right still regarded him as heavenly.

Now, columnists such as Kathleen Parker are accusing the social right of destroying the GOP. However, that’s not exactly the truth. Religious and social conservatives actually destroyed themselves in the name of propping up the GOP—while deliberately ignoring the fact that Reagan and both Bushes weren’t that concerned with their interests. One can’t blame the social right for concluding that the Democrats were too influenced by secular concerns to respond to their needs. However, history will reflect that the country’s “culture warriors” should have come to the same conclusion about the Republicans.