Offensive Conservatives
By Lisa Fabrizio
November 20, 2008
Scanning through the headlines, trying to find one that does not contain the phrase 'president-elect'--does anyone remember George W. Bush being called anything but 'Governor' until his inauguration?--I happened across a piece from the BBC humorously titled, "Uncertain times for US Religious Right." (web site) In it, the left muses on its favorite dream; that humbled by defeat in the last two elections, "Christian conservatives may find themselves working alongside Democrats" on certain social issues.
BBC's Matthew Wells hopefully focuses on the "tension between the narrow social agenda of Christian conservatives and the broader, more pragmatic 'low tax' wing of the party." Well, I hate to disappoint our British brethren, but the 'religious right' has never been more certain that its cause is just; given that the "narrow social agenda" we defend originates far higher up the food chain than Washington, DC. And the events of November 4th will only make true conservatives even more determined to fight for it.
We lost this election not because this agenda wasn't important to voters, it's that their pocketbooks were more so. One has only to look to statewide elections where bans on same-sex marriage passed, to know that even in California, the radical left agenda did not hold sway across the board. The thought that a big win by Democrats will make the conservative movement dry up and blow away, is as laughable as the notion that 20 years of Reagan/Bush decimated the liberal agenda.
Of course our challenge is much greater than that of the left because of the stranglehold they still retain on the media, the public education system and especially the courts. As we are seeing (web site) in California, even when the people exercise their right to self govern by amending their Constitution, liberals seek to circumvent this process through their willing allies on the bench.
But such efforts will only serve to further strengthen our movement and commitment, especially as our very identity as Americans comes under assault. We are called conservatives because we seek to preserve that which every American should hold dear: our founding document, the U.S. Constitution.
This is why many conservatives never fully supported John McCain; we remember his political free speech-busting Campaign Reform Bill. And although he naively signed it believing that the Supreme Court would strike it down, President Bush deserves credit for appointing our current Chief Justice who, in negating some of its most offending aspects last year, wrote: (web site)
[W]hen it comes to defining what speech qualifies as the functional equivalent of express advocacy subject to such a ban--the issue we do have to decide--we give the benefit of the doubt to speech, not censorship. The First Amendment's command that "Congress shall make no law . . . abridging the freedom of speech" demands at least that.
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