Republicans and God

last updated 8 January 2015

Three letters explain the Republican defeat—G-O-D, said Kathleen Parker in The Washington Post. “To be more specific, the evangelical, right-wing, oogedy-boogedy branch of the GOP is what ails the erstwhile conservative party.” This “armband religion” is killing the party by alienating the rest of its “non-base constituents" and driving away secularists and conservative Democrats too.

With the possible exception of hardcore creationism, said Jonah Goldberg in National Review Online, it’s hard to figure out where Parker believes the GOP embraced “oogedy-boogedyism.” Does she mean “opposition to abortion? Opposition to gay marriage?” Support for school prayer? These are legitimate conservative positions that deserve respect, not the kind of insults conservatives are accustomed to finding at the Huffington Post and DailyKos.

Faith in God isn't what's hurting the GOP, said Carol Platt Liebau in Townhall.com, "although a certain clumsiness in invoking Him and discussing moral issues generally occasionally does." But going atheist like the liberal left will only guarantee failure. Sure, the party's in a jam, but "it's always a bad thing to throw the baby out with the bathwater. It's even worse to throw out the Almighty."