Huckabee Threatens To Leave GOP Over Gay Marriage, Abortion

[garbon]

To be honest, I think mixing abortion and homosexuality is a bit of a dishonest move on his part. I agree that the needle for that is in a very different place from homosexuality. 

I don't know that Republicans should do a total flip and embrace homosexuality (necks might snap from the whiplash) but it does make sense to de-emphasize that as part of the party platform. It isn't really a winning issue /could they spend less time on that front on more on things that actually matter?

Of course, I'm also not sure holding onto the religious right is ultimately the best strategy. I mean I guess it is good for the politicians who can ride that safely into office but I'm not sure it is good for the party, or the American public as a whole.

[Sheilbh]

So our views aren't that different? I think the Federal solution is the best to de-emphasise. It wouldn't be a national thing among Republicans and you'd have a defence for disagreeing.

On the Religious Right I disagree. I think they get a lot of stick but opinion on gay marriage is moving quick among Evangelicals too (though between generations), so they're not some uniform, unchangeable voting block. Though there'll always be holdouts I think it's largely a generational thing.

The Religious Right of today doesn't look like Pat Buchanan's and it won't look the same in thirty years time. Also, from a European perspective, I'm not convinced cordons sanitaires around certain chunks of voters work.

[Eddie Teach]

Even at the best of times, a party which depends on votes from people who are in or expect to be in high tax brackets is going to have trouble getting a majority. These aren't the most optimistic of times. Get rid of social and cultural issues and the outcome's likely to resemble FDR's elections.

[Martinus]

Yeah, GOP needs it message of hatred and bigotry in order to get racists and homophobes to vote against their economic interest.

[Admiral Yi]

Yeah, GOP needs it message of hatred and bigotry in order to get racists and homophobes to vote against their economic interest.

Can you give me some examples of racists and homophobes [sic] voting against their economic interest?

[Eddie Teach]

homophobes [sic]

Pretty sure that is the word he meant.

[Sheilbh]

Yeah, GOP needs it message of hatred and bigotry in order to get racists and homophobes to vote against their economic interest.

Actually I think race is the big issue the GOP still need to move on and one of the few people who've done anything on that is Huckabee, though not enough.

[Sheilbh]

homophobes [sic]

Pretty sure that is the word he meant.

I think Yi defines the word etymologically rather than based on use or the dictionary.

[Martinus]

Yeah, GOP needs it message of hatred and bigotry in order to get racists and homophobes to vote against their economic interest.

Can you give me some examples of racists and homophobes [sic] voting against their economic interest?

Are you kidding me?

[Martinus]

homophobes [sic]

Pretty sure that is the word he meant.

I think Yi defines the word etymologically rather than based on use or the dictionary.

Does he do it with every word (if so, words like "hippopotamus" and "antisemite" must be a bitch) or just this one?

[CountDeMoney]

Yeah, GOP needs it message of hatred and bigotry in order to get racists and homophobes to vote against their economic interest.

Can you give me some examples of racists and homophobes [sic] voting against their economic interest?

Every election since 1980.

[Admiral Yi]

I think Yi defines the word etymologically rather than based on use or the dictionary.

What's more relevant in this case is Marty's definition, which is anyone who opposes any gay policy.

[OttoVonBismarck]

Abortion is an abomination morally, but I think it's a long term technologically dated issue. I think there's been a pretty good downward trend on unwanted pregnancies, and most of those are no being had by those below the poverty line. Something like 70% of people who have abortions are below the poverty line. Eventually tax payers on both sides of the spectrum are probably going to come to an agreement to boost contraception funding because it's cheaper than more and more poor kids and far less morally objectionable than killing a fetus in the womb. Further, in a society that is trying to equate animal life with human life in a growing trend of "species equality", I find it hard to believe that eventually the people who believe killing baby cows for delicious food is evil are going to be okay with killing babies that happen to still be in the womb. I think over time abortion will be viewed as far less acceptable, especially when contraception is made more universally available. In some of the most recent Gallup polling 65% of Americans felt abortion was terminating a human life (biologically of course that's not disputable, it is terminating homo sapien life), more people today than 20 years ago view abortion as morally wrong (51% in 2011 versus as low as the low 40% in the past), and only 39% of people view abortion as morally acceptable (down from a little over 40%.)

So it's a slow trend, but I think a lot of people are sort of slowly getting more and more uncomfortable with abortion. In particular it should be noted America's abortion laws are extremely permissive in comparison to Europe. Many European countries disallow abortion past 12 weeks, and the ones that allow later term abortions all perform the procedure essentially almost never, while it is rare in the United States it is an order of magnitude more often than in Europe. That suggests that American abortion policy is actually out of step with the Western norm, which is okay with it very early on but deeply uncomfortable with it late term, particularly when the fetus would be viable outside the mother. [Technically RvW only prohibits the State from stepping in on behalf of the life of the fetus pre-viability, but most States have stuck to a trimester framework or been more permissive than RvW as they wrote their laws after RvW but before Planned Parenthood v Casey which established the viability test.]

I think as you have better sex education and better access to contraception, that undermines a lot of the feeling that abortion is morally defensible. Of course, many of those who are most ardently against abortion are also against sex education and contraception, but luckily only the ones who care enough to send their kids to Protestant madrassas and bible colleges will perpetuate and they are going to eventually be aged out of anything but the ultra fringe. But most importantly opinions on abortion haven't changed much since the 90s, and in that they have changed they have moved more against it than for it (the only real place where the popular opinion has shifted in favor of the pro-choice side is less people today view it as murder, but more people view it as immoral.) I know a lot of young people that are against abortion in any case as individuals, even if they might begrudgingly be okay with it as a matter of law. [Personally I'm for it legally until we have more holistic sex education and better contraception access, but am deeply opposed to it morally. However, I'm okay with it continuing as a matter of law and policy because I would rather there be more dead unborn poor babies than living poor babies.]

[Josquius]

I think totally the opposite there. As time goes on abortion will become more and more common place anf acceptable. It is obvious even now that a fetus is no more human than the spunk in a sock and as technology advances and abortion becomes ever quicker, cheaper and safer, it will come to be seen as a viable method of contraception in its own right

[CountDeMoney]

Eventually tax payers on both sides of the spectrum are probably going to come to an agreement to boost contraception funding because it's cheaper than more and more poor kids and far less morally objectionable than killing a fetus in the womb.

  No they won't.

Your premise seems to be that there would be some sort of political maturation of the American public to abortion, when it's all gone increasingly in the opposite direction the last twenty years:  less funding, less accessibility, more legal restrictions.