The Tide is Against the Social Conservatives

With Barack Obama in the White House and Democrats controlling both the Senate and the House, the once powerful social conservatives no longer have a strong voice in the government. After the ruling in Iowa and legislative action in Vermont, the social conservatives' outcry against gay marriage has been limited to right-leaning news outlets, or the comments sections of news articles.

The other factor that's playing a big role is the economic crises. As clueless as they have been, republicans know better than to take up anti-gay crusade again when all people care about these days is the economy. Chuck Grassley, Iowa's senior Republican Senator first refused to comment on the court ruling legalizing gay marriage. It was not until days later, probably after numerous calls from his wingnut friends, that he finally made some vague statement about gay marriage being a long-term fight.

Unfortunately, the Republicans apparently despise Rudy Giuliani too much to send him the memo on gay marriage. Or maybe it did make it to be desk but was buried under all the earlier conservative manifestos he was trying to immerse himself in. The once moderate republican all of a sudden believes the only way to get another elected office is to run as a social conservative, by opposing gay marriage no less. Even some social conservatives wonder if they really want to embrace a thrice-married, cross dressing former mayor as the defender of "traditional marriage". Oh Rudy, I truly feel sorry for you.

On the other hand, moderate republicans who had been afraid to speak out in the past finally made their views clear: continuing to hang out with the social conservatives will doom the GOP. Jon Huntsman, the younger and more enlightened version of Mitt Romney, voiced his support for civil unions despite being governor of the most conservative state. And miraculously that position hasn't hurt his approval ratings at all, which is more than one can say for Sarah Palin.

Even some of the most well-known social conservatives have started to distant themselves from their past anti-gay stance. Dr. Laura Schlessinger and the Rev. Rick Warren now want gay people to think they have never been homophobic after all, despite their past comments. Can you imagine Dr Laura using words like "beautiful", "healthy" to describe gay relationships?

Oh, we can hardly handle all the love that's coming our way.