The FundamentaList

By Sarah Posner - The Fundamentalist
Wednesday, July 16, 2008 - Web Link
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July 16, 2008

How easy is it to play the religious right? So easy even John McCain can do it.

For weeks after McCain clinched his party's nomination, all we heard from the religious-right leadership was what an unsatisfactory candidate he was. He was insufficiently in favor of "life" because he perhaps thought stem-cell research was a good idea. His campaign-finance legislation trampled on the free-speech rights of anti-abortion groups. He was opposed to a federal constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, even though he thinks it's just fine for states to amend their own constitutions. His story about the Vietcong prison guard drawing a cross in the sand was nice and all, but couldn't he talk about Jesus more? He threw John Hagee and Rod Parsley under the bus. He waited too long to visit Billy Graham. You know, all that stuff that really matters for being president during the worst economic, military, and foreign-policy crises of our lifetimes.

Back when we pondered the possibility of a cross-dressing former mayor of New York, a non-church-attending Hollywood actor, a Mormon from Sodom, or a Southern Baptist minister with a hick name as the Republican nominee, the religious right was threatening rebellion by forming a third party. But then the Democratic primary turnout made Republicans look as old and tired as their eventual nominee. The religious right woke up to the reality that sinking the GOP was not exactly the best path to continued political relevancy.

After McCain clinched the nomination, the religious-right leadership slowly realized they had to play the game -- but they ended up getting played by McCain. Religious-right leaders acted publicly as if they were withholding judgment until McCain gave them something -- and oh, that something was not much: perfunctory support for the California gay marriage ban and a pledge to clone John Roberts and Samuel Alito for any Supreme Court appointments.