election 2008: the evangelicals

The Evangelical Crackup - New York Times

interesting article. though this piece is further proof of a growing split within the political-evangelical wing of the religious right, i don't think the 'crackup' is as monumental as the writer thinks. most of the folks leaving the radical right aren't necessarily leaving because they think the religious right is going in the wrong direction; they're leaving because they thought bush was too weak to support their conservative social plan.

in other words, bush didn't go far enough.

i think that's sort of scary.

in the past 7 years, i think bush has gone pretty far; his two ultra-conservative supreme court picks now sit on the court, affecting the course of our civil liberties for several lifetimes; he's been successful appointing folks hostile to reproductive health access for women; scientific fact has been increasingly replaced with 'faith-based' pseudo-science and he's used the budget process to reduce or eliminate funding to social programs important to vulnerable or marginal populations.

if all this regressive social policy/judicial activism isn't good enough for them, imagine what it is they *do* want.

[shudder]