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April 10th, 2012
04:33 PM ET
With Santorum suspending campaign, some religious conservatives wonder how to proceedBy Dan Gilgoff, CNN.com Religion Editor (CNN) - Evangelical activist Michael Farris was not exactly surprised that Rick Santorum suspended his campaign on Tuesday. But that doesn’t mean that Farris, a longtime political organizer, knows what he’s supposed to do now. “Right now my choice is to sit on my hands and do nothing or to actively try to find some alternative” to Mitt Romney, Farris said in an interview shortly after Santorum's announcement. “Some of us just have a hard time supporting a person who said he was going to be more liberal on gay rights than Ted Kennedy,” said Farris, chairman of the Home School Legal Defense Association, referring to remarks Romney made in a 1994 letter. Farris’ reaction is a stark emblem of the disappointment among religious conservatives over Santorum's announcement, and a reminder that Romney’s enthusiasm deficit among the conservative evangelicals who form the GOP’s base hasn’t gone away. CNN’s Belief Blog: The faith angles behind the biggest stories “There are two kinds of disappointment today,” said John Green, a religion and politics expert at the University of Akron. “One is felt by people who care a great deal about social issues, especially white evangelicals, who are uncomfortable with Mitt Romney.” “And there’s another group who really liked Santorum,” Green continued, “and were quite excited about him not only because of the social issues but because they saw him as representing this positive role for faith and values in a society.” The conservative and largely evangelical Family Research Council said in an email to supporters Tuesday night that Santorum's announcement "was clearly disappointing news for those looking for a nominee who understands and articulates the connection between the social and fiscal challenges facing America." "His historical run for President achieved remarkable success because his campaign was based not on money spent, but on the pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-freedom message he carried," the Family Research Council email blast said. Religious conservatives were the key to Santorum’s unlikely rise as a serious presidential candidate. Conservative evangelicals and Catholics were drawn to Santorum as much for his personal story – he is a conservative Catholic and homeschooling dad of seven – as for his outspoken advocacy against abortion rights and same-sex marriage as a U.S. senator. While polls showed him at the back of a seven-person pack just weeks before January’s first-in-the-nation Iowa caucuses, Santorum won a plurality of Iowa evangelicals, who accounted for nearly 60% of the electorate. That support laid the foundation for a first place Iowa finish. After Santorum’s primary loss in New Hampshire to Mitt Romney - and days before Santorum would lose to Newt Gingrich in South Carolina - conservative religious activists convened in Texas and congealed behind the former Pennsylvania senator. With strong evangelical support, Santorum went on to win primaries and caucuses in 11 states, even as Romney racked up more than twice as many delegates. Not all conservative religious activists are as dead-set against Romney as Farris, who is also chancellor at Patrick Henry College, a school for homeschooled youth. “Barack Obama will unite conservatives and people of faith more so than any single Republican candidate can hope to do,” said Mat Staver, an evangelical Christian who leads the conservative legal group Liberty Counsel. But Staver said Romney would have to work hard to excite social conservatives. “He’s going to have to make some intentional steps to reach out to evangelicals and religious conservatives,” said Staver. “It would be a mistake to assume he has every vote from evangelicals and religious conservatives locked up.” At the moment, plenty of other conservative activists say they’re still in wait-and-see mode about the primary season. “It’s very likely that he’ll end up the nominee, but he’s not he nominee yet,” said Steve Scheffler, president or the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, about Romney. “He was never my first choice, but I’ll support him because the alternative is something we can’t live with. “But I’m not ready to throw my support to him yet,” Scheffler said. |
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The CNN Belief Blog covers the faith angles of the day's biggest stories, from breaking news to politics to entertainment, fostering a global conversation about the role of religion and belief in readers' lives. It's edited by CNN's Daniel Burke with contributions from Eric Marrapodi and CNN's worldwide news gathering team. |
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What will the religious conservatives do? For all I care they can all get raptured, and leave the rest of humanity alone forever.
Amen. Jesus, if you do actually exist, come down here and take your mouth breathing, hate mongering fan club home already.
The rapture is an invention of the Evangelical church in the 19th century. It's not part of Christianity.
I have been a life long Republican – fiscal conservative, gun owner, and business owner. I wish the Republicans would get there act together and dump the religious aspects of the party. Remember the separation of Church and State? It drives me nuts that I am sometimes almost embarrassed to call myself a Republican at times.
I would suggest people vote for the candidate they feel would be best to be our president. I would suggest people stop voting based on party or race or religion, and start voting on the candidate.
Sure. They should look at proposed policies and track record too though. I wouldn't buy a car without looking in its pants.
and taking it for a ride, if you see what I mean.
Religious conservatives should just... go ahead and start their own party.
Fiscal conservatives (i.e., the selfish) should leave the GOP and join the Libertarian Party where they belong.
See? Obviously they are not all in the same boat.
They can call it "The Party Of God". Wait a sec, when you translate that into Arabic, you get "Hezbollah".
So is this 2012 or 1612?? These nutjobs are as bad as the Taliban!! brainwashed r3tards!!
It is the mentally challenged atheists who never ever think deeply about anything and whose belief system is inherentlly inconsistent that are going to take Amerika staright to hell.
Ken. Ken, Ken Ken. Where to begin.
Ken78: What are you talking about?
Don't really understand...Mitt is a GREAT pick for religious conservatives. He is a great example of a Christian. Look at his family values. He does not smoke or drink and the list goes on...It is because of religious bigotry that religious conservatives will not vote fore him. For some reason it is still okay to have religious bigotry for Mormonism but not for any other religion. It is okay to say I will not vote for him because he is a Mormon but not okay to say I will not vote for him because he is black.
😛 They were never happy with Catholics either. Santorum acted more like an Evangelical than a Catholic which is one of the reasons why he had trouble with the Catholic vote. If there had been a Evangelical candidate, you would have heard all about Santorum's "idol worshiping" religion.
Romney is very experienced at getting on top of the likes of Santorum and Gingrich as you can see at http://santorum.com, but I'm not sure that he is the right guy to be chasing Obama from behind. I don't think he will get any penetration into Obama's base, and he won't be able to provide much stimulus while handcuffed like that.
how does religious politics proceed?
Same as they always have – by creating controversy and stamping out any opposing thought
This soft withdrawal by Santorum doesn't come as much of a surprise given that he hasn't ever been able to get out and on top of Romney, despite a few promising thrusts at Romney in his fairly weak south. Santorum's base has been a pretty small one to come from, and Romney has had his pole deep in position from the start.
Tea party members are well experienced in today's news at http://santorum.com and will not be surprised by it. The real, actual erection campaign is now underway but Romney is looking pretty flaccid after his exertions on Santorum and puffy Gingrich. He will need to recover some energy after his romp with Santorum et al to have any chance at coming from behind Obama.
Please have a evangelical kool-aid party Jimmy Jones style, its what's best for America
I don't know why gay marriage is confused as human rights for gays. Technically, impotent men can't marry either. Nor can eunuchs. Nor can people with several medical conditions. Why is it that two men can marry because it is a "civil/human/gay" right. Leave married couples alone. Enjoy ur rights.
Whaaat? Impotent men can't marry??? Lol
Nii was talking about himself and his current animal partner. They don't plan to formalize their already consumated relationship.
Don't bother trying to make sense of Nii. Your time would be better spent watching Gilligan's Island
Not true Nii. Impotent men can marry and their wife can file for divorce for lack of consummating.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJwsJXbS_Ok
any questions?
Yes.
Why the hell can't you just type out what it is that you want to say instead of spamming this blog with cheap videos?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=teRtooEScy4&feature=related
As a fiscal conservative and social liberal, I never had a candidate to vote for to begin with.
So true.
They'll do what they always do; find the cutest, whitest, most innocent lamb- and make it bleed.
The real question is "What will religious bigots do?" Many conservatives who are also Christians have been supporting Romney for some time now.
I guess ultra conservative evengelicals still don't understand "Love thy neighbor" it doesn't say "love thy neighbor so long as thy neighbor is just like you."
A good Christian doesn't need to make the law of the land conform to them, if they had any memory they would know the abuses that was caused last time that happened (Reference the "Dark ages" in Euorpean history)
Sadly these are the very people who are fueling the exodous from the Christian church, rigid and cold men and women who've forgotten to turn the other cheek and judge not lest ye be judged thyself.
Their holier than thou demeanor does them no favors and they are rapidly becoming the next extremest group on the horizon.
.You forgot to write:
"I say, as an atheist, that . . . "
Actually Ken, many of us prefer to be called blasphemers or pagans rather than atheists. Thanks for your consideration on this sensitive matter.
"white evangelicals'. John Green hit the nail right on its bigoted little head. These people have hijacked the political discourse so far backwards that it would have been out of place in the 1800s. Their fear and non-understanding of everything outside of their own tiny lives has created so many non-existent bogymen who actually pose no threat to them and their way of life. In fact it is they that want to limit the freedoms of others solely because they are not like them.
Bingo!
In the 1800s abortion was illegal pretty much everywhere and they lynched gays in some places.
Just sayin'.
And they control thirty percent of the poor Republican Party, which might as well just chop off its own head.
Agreed! They are welcome to sit out the election, and hopefully a significant number of them will. The GOP should also continue to work very hard to drive as many women away from the party as possible.
Back in the 1600s, they got on boats and went to another country. Just sayin.
i got 10bux. let's start a spaceship fund for these guys!
"...his campaign was based not on money spent, but on the pro-life, pro-marriage, pro-freedom message he carried," What a pants load, his message of "pro-freedom" is "do what I tell you to do cause I am religoius" I am glad his evil @$$ is out of this race and I hope he stays home and continues to overpopulate the planet with genetically flawed children.
For decades I considered myself a fiscal conservative and a moderate on social issues. I happily supported the Republican Party, voted mostly Republican. But in the past 15 years I have been disenfranchised from my own party as fiscal conservatism has nothing to do with being a Republican anymore. Being a dogmatic zealot, being insanely bent on forcing the rest of the nation and world to live in accordance with the skewed positive thought evangelical movement in the US is the fundamental and really only goal of the religious right. That trumps all other party platforms and in fact the Republicans are more than willing to dump America down the drain over social issues. Time and again Wall Street has used this to get whatever it wants, only having to trade a tiny pittance to spend on these social issue crusades, in return for trillions and trillions in exploitative graft ... stolen from the American citizens.
Hatred, bigotry, ignorance, discrimination on the basis of race, gender, etc. are all hallmarks of the evangelical right in this country. I am not making a comment here about religion overall one way or another. But in the days since the "moral majority" has been deeply involved in politics our nation has taken a terrible turn for the worse. This turn has been the result of trying to force people to live in accordance with a single social view based on a single religion (and a very, very narrowly interpreted view of it at that). This zealotry to the point of insanity has taken America off of the rails. In the name of this skewed view of religion at least in part we as a nation have made many poor decisions. Why should a single religion be able to determine who can and can not get married? Who and for what reason someone can get access to contraception or even have an abortion. These are individual decisions that the government, let alone a church using the government as its mouthpiece, shouldn't really have any say in. The evangelical right has created a philosophical fortress of hypocritical ideas and beliefs that have nothing to do with the Christian faith. It has been a sad day in America and in the world when Wall Street took control of our nation via the Trojan horse of right wing religious hypocritical dogma. Sad times, sad sad times. The saddest and most ironic part of all of this is that this all stems from terrible corruptions of the Christian religion.
I'm about as financially conservative as you can get, and I want my country strong. But I've got no use for bible-bangers telling me some ghost thinks my hair's too long, or ordering me to go to church and worship some rock or book. The GOP might as well be the Fascist Party now, so I vote with the less conservative group.
@ Bible Clown:
I'm about as socially conservative as you can get, and I want my country to stand for peace. But I've got no use for selfish moneygrubbers who think they made it all on their own, giving themselves huge tax breaks and sticking it to the poor, and who want our laws to be all about everyone worshipping money and the rich. The GOP might as well be the Fascist Party now.
Your willingness to accept abortion as someone's "choice" rather than the murder of innocents, which it is, just shows how much your belief in Christian principles has slipped. I say that movements such as the "moral majority" have as much right to engage in politics as do those who defiantly scream "separation of church and state" when someone wants to worship in a public place. Movements to defend religious freedom have grown as a reaction to those who actively fight to diminish right of people to adhere to their religious beliefs. Because it is Christianity that is attacked the most, it is natural that it will be Christians that finally have to band together in politics, knowing that not to do so will eventually lead to their religious rights being outlawed altogether in favor of some state approved "religion" that doesn't offend anyone. Maybe you would like that.
Amen
How can you be pro-freedom if you're pro-life and, "pro-marriage?"
How can you be pro-freedom if you're pro-life?
Really? I think that life is one of the most important freedoms in life.
{Rolls eyes and shakes head slowly}
When everyone restrain on what all they can do they not only keep their freedom, they also honor others freedom. So freedom is not what yo can do. Russia tried it the way you may mean and it collapsed. We are better than Russia.
No one anywhere, anytime can limit or take your freedom away unless you're spinless enough to let them.
It would be really nice if they would go to some island somewhere and drink the koolaid.
Make it out of seawater.