Election Results Show a Mixed Night for the Christian Right
By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
Yes, socially conservative Republican candidates prevailed last night in the big races—the gubernatorial contests in Virginia and New Jersey—but it was the special election for New York's 23rd Congressional District that had become a national symbol for the battle between religious conservatives and the GOP establishment. In recent days, it was the race that the big Christian right groups like the Family Research Council and Susan B. Anthony List and the movement's favored politician, Sarah Palin, had become most outspoken about.
But after forcing the socially liberal Republican out of the race, the right's candidate, Doug Hoffman of the Conservative Party, lost yesterday to Democrat Bill Owens. It's the first time a Democrat has won the district's seat in more than 100 years. After having made the race a national emblem, the right—including the Christian right—have to face the national implications of its loss there. Even in a ruby red district, the aggressively conservative Hoffman brand failed.
In Virginia and New Jersey, by contrast, the winning Republican candidates made a point of downplaying their social conservatism. As Spiritual Politics' Mark Silk notes, the new recipe for GOP success appears to be "a return to the Gingrich days of the 1980s and early 1990s, with Reaganesque candidates like Virginia's Bob McDonnell hiding their social conservatism under a bushel as social conservatives mobilize quietly behind the scenes." McDonnell and New Jersey's next governor, Chris Christie, campaigned as moderates.
In light of Hoffman's loss, the Christian right's biggest victory came in Maine, where voters rejected a newly adopted same-sex marriage law. In Washington State, meanwhile, voters approved a so-called "everything but marriage law" that expands rights for gay couples. The split decision mirrors what national polls tell us about where Americans are on gay couples: yes to civil unions, no to gay marriage.
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Tags: New Jersey | New York | Virginia | Republicans | religion
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Reader Comments
Uh-huh...
Marcharino,
Unfortunately, that whole pile of drivel you just spewed is meaningless in the context of those who don't believe in fairy tales. Thankfully, that context is growing every year.
The real misconception is that of God, ego as the soul, and purpose of religion!
Marc,
I think that you're the one with the misconception of who is, or what is, God. Your misunderstanding of the composition of humanity of body, "ego" and spirit is obviously at odds with God's definition of the tripartite nature of man and woman which body, SOUL and spirit (1 Thess 5:23).
The soul is the most important divine aspect of the tripartite nature. The soul is the eternal part of humanity that lives on after the body dies and spirit goes back to God who gave it!
Likely, that is why you don't care about perverting the traditional marriage ordained by God with gay marriage. After all, you don't recognize the soul of man and woman that craves to fulfill the will of God to unite two souls in marriage, consummate their souls in God's presence, and to procreate and allow God to give another soul a chance at eternal life.
Your definition merely ascribes "ego" in place of the intense and inborn soul's need to satisfy the soul that God gave each one of us! For truly, the only way to be at peace with God and sanctified wholly is to "pray God your whole spirit and soul and body be preserved blameless unto the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ."
Check your facts
I really wish those in the media would do some fact checking for a change. The last democrat in the Ny-23 was in 1993, a whole 16 years ago, not 100 like the left leaning MSM would have you believe
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NY-23#1843_-_present:_one_seat
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