John Hawkins: If someone came up to you and said, “Sam Brownback, pick any three pieces of legislation you want, anything you want, to get them passed, what would they be?However you spin it, he knows exactly what to say to get the religious right to listen. Of course, you have to throw in the abortion issue, not that I am not against abortion, I am more for the issue to be looked at a little more realistically. Possibly Brownback will do that.
Sam Brownback: My first would be on the life issue. We’d be getting legislation to protect young human life in the womb and from being researched on.
The second one, given the nature and the time that we’re in right now, would probably be that deficit reduction deal...that I mentioned to you. As to the rest of government we do need to get this budget balanced and get it centered back to where we need to get it.
And then there would probably be the decency legislation that’s pending now, increasing fines toward Hollywood, really trying to send a message into the culture that we need to clean up the culture.
I want to take back that one. I’d probably do a piece of immigration legislation instead of a decency one. I think that’s just a more important area -- the immigration. So it’d be a life, deficit reduction bill, and immigration.
You cannot be considered a credible politician if you don't say something about deficit reduction, so I'll give him that one, but the foible on decency legislation in Hollywood; that is laughable. That was purely to play to conservatives, because Hollywood is to blame for all the sin in America, right?
And the immigration legislation has been Dr. Richard Land's and the SBC's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission's pet peeve for a long time. The article does not tell specifically what Sen. Brownback's position on the issue is; it will be interesting to see where it all leads.
pastordan at The Street Prophets wryly commented, "That giant sigh of relief you just heard came from James Dobson's office in Colorado Springs." Phew!
Sincerely,
Tony
5 comments:
Yeah, isn't that great? Indecency, but not a mention of poverty or the environment. Social justice is not a Republican value, I am afraid.
I am working on expressing my beliefs clearly. :)
I found his failure to address those two items troubling as well. He did concede in that same article that human rights issues were more of a concern to the "far left" than right wing conservatives.
Go figure.
What is most interesting to me is how some of these issues become "either/or," in a way that I don't understand. As I have tried to make clear on my own blog to a certain commenter, opposing torture wouldn't have required Dobson or Falwell to step away from their opposition to abortion or homosexuality. Standing for the poor and opposing environmental destruction is not an oppositional or contrdictory cause with real conservatism either.
It may conflict with people who believe the answers to society's ills are to punish people who swear on television, but come on!
This is one of those things I have begun arguing against in my blog. I think the bottom line is that they really just don't care. They know what issues stick with voters or their "constituency" and that is to whom they pander. Running on a platform to address issues of social justice just does not attract the voters; even if it were a sideline issue, an "in addition to" rather than an "instead of." At least then they would gain some credibility in my book.
I find it telling that he included the remark about Hollywood and then retracted it to make a remark about something that really matters; illegal immigration and border patrol. However, he knows both issues are important to conservatives and he would get kudos for mentioning both. You mentioned something to a certain commenter about "campaign promises..."
I think the most disheartening thing is that the constituency doesn't care. How do we actually get change when the people who claim to live by the book don't care about social justice?
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