True. It wasn't until the SCOTUS ruling on abortion that the religious right became a political power. Then a lot of religious Democrats switched parties. But I think the religious right hit its peak during Reagan and that power has been ebbing very slowly ever since. Yes gay marriage is more of a peripheral issue to other issues that really count more. It is way down on the totem pole so to speak. Abortion is higher on the totem, but that has been decided. It is just some won't let go of it. Roe v. Wade will never be overturned.
The Pro-Life are growing to outweigh the Pro-Choice in this country, and are capturing more and more of the young (who are otherwise generally more socially liberal).
Plessy v Ferguson was on the books for decades, too, until we recognized it as the injustice that it was.
The thing here is a lot of fiscal conservatives believe in small government or what is known as the third tenet of traditional conservatism. Keeping government out of a citizens private business and lives.
The problem being that they all too often fail to realize that social conservatism is a necessary precondition to fiscal conservatism. Women and children require a support model. That model will either be "husbands" or it will be "big government". Those who cannot work for themselves require a support model as well. That model will either be "family, savings, and society" or it will be "big government". So long as we live in a world in which non-optimal family structure are encouraged or enabled, you will have demand for big, expensive government to make up the gaps.
Letting a woman decide on her own whether or not to have an abortion is more of an individual choice, freedom if you will. Having government dictate to a woman that she can't have an abortion is more of a statist view or action.
This is a claim that begs the assumption. If an unborn child is indeed a human child (as the pro-life hold), then it is no more "statist" for a government to restrict abortion than it is Statist for that government to restrict any other killing of one person by another.
Gay marriage, once again it is keeping government out of deciding who can or who can't be married.
If that were honestly the policy alternative. Instead it is is libertarians (generally) supporting positions to change
what government decides about to whom it shall issue a marriage license rather than deciding
not to do so. I still think that the first is a
deeply problematic position (society has a host of reasons why it is good policy to encourage successful marriages), but it isn't what is actually being de facto supported.
I would personally take it even further and do away with the polygamy laws. Let those involved or individuals decide on their own whom to marry, not government.
So you would indeed maintain a role for government in marriage, meaning that you are not "libertarian" on the issue, but merely socially liberal. Polygamy comes additionally with a host of issues - polygamous societies are less stable, for example.
But each of us view things differently, to me this is keeping government out of the bedroom, you might view it entirely different
I don't recall the government aggressively pursuing a law that states "If you are married to one woman, you cannot live with and sleep with a second as well". The government isn't in the bedroom relegating
action, it is simply having limits placed on it by the populace (namely, the limits defining when it will or will not issue a marriage license) - and that is a function that
you would keep, only adjusting the particulars a bit.
But I do think at sometime in the future, whenever that is. That the Republicans will have to decide whether to keep the religious right under their umbrella or reach out to those fiscal conservatives who are fairly liberal socially to bring them back into the flock.
Well, given the past few elections, the answer to that is plain - Social Conservatives are the base, if you don't bring them out, you lose. Those who are A) socially liberal B) fiscally conservative and C) likely to either sit out a vote or vote Democrat aren't a big enough proportion of the populace to justify losing the base to.
Generally speaking, it's also a shrinking portion of the populace - the American people are becoming more ideologically uniform within the camps - we are more likely to be both socially
and fiscally liberal or both socially
and fiscally conservative than in the past.
