In case you missed it, the New York Times highlighted yesterday the way in which the religious right movement, while helping to drive the political agenda in DC, is also taking advantage of the power it can wield at the state level.
Energized by electoral victories last month that they say reflect wide support for more traditional social values, conservative Christian advocates across the country are pushing ahead state and local initiatives on thorny issues, including same-sex marriage, public education and abortion.
“I think people are becoming emboldened,” said Michael D. Bowman, director of state legislative relations at Concerned Women for America, a conservative Christian advocacy group based in Washington. “On legislative efforts, they’re getting more gutsy, and on certain issues, they may introduce legislation that they normally may not have done.”
It is on the state level “where most family issues are decided,” Mr. Bowman said. And it is there that local advocacy groups hope to build quickly on the momentum from the election when legislatures convene in the new year.
As a substantive matter, Bowman’s largely right. Federal laws can have a significant impact, but on a variety of social and political issues, state lawmakers exercise broad and sweeping influence over people’s day-to-day lives.
And considering what Republicans are like at the state level, that’s horrifying.
If you want to truly appreciate the extent to which the GOP grassroots have fallen off the far-right ledge, skip the Republican National Platform and dive into state parties’ platforms. If you thought DeLay & Co. have lost their collective minds (and, to be sure, they have), take a look at what DeLay’s buddies in Austin believe. The word “unhinged” comes to mind when you read the Texas GOP platform and see their commitment to:
* return to the gold standard
* eliminate church-state separation
* criminalize gay sex and all abortions, regardless of circumstance
* abolish Social Security, the federal reserve, the federal income tax, and the federal minimum wage
* withdraw from the United Nations
These same folks are now anxious to flex their muscle in shaping state law on policies ranging from health care, to education, to criminal justice. Be afraid. Be very afraid.
Also realize that this religious right takeover of state capitals leads people like Cynthia Davis to have a role in passing state laws across the country.
State Representative Cynthia Davis of Missouri pre-filed two bills for the next session of the Legislature that she said “reflect what people want.” One would remove the state’s requirement that all forms of contraception and their potential health effects be taught in schools, leaving the focus on abstinence. Another would require publishers that sell biology textbooks to Missouri to include at least one chapter with alternative theories to evolution.
“These are common-sense, grass-roots ideas from the people I represent, and I’d be very surprised if a majority of legislators didn’t feel they were the right solutions to these problems,” Ms. Davis said.
“It’s like when the hijackers took over those four planes on Sept. 11 and took people to a place where they didn’t want to go,” she added. “I think a lot of people feel that liberals have taken our country somewhere we don’t want to go. I think a lot more people realize this is our country and we’re going to take it back.”
You read that right; this unbalanced state lawmaker just accused liberals of being the moral equivalent of the 9/11 terrorists. This is the Republican Party in George W. Bush’s America.
The mind reels.