Hating the GOP: It's Not Just For Liberals Anymore

Andrew Sullivan, for one.

Here is a lengthy quote:

Let me confess something here. When I examine my conscience, I realize, in fact, that my absolute opposition to the torture of other human beings is, at its root, a religious conviction. It springs from my Catholic faith, which, despite the best efforts of the Catholic hierarchy, endures. The inherent dignity of all human beings is something I believe is a reflection of God's will through the revelation of Jesus Christ. In the end, that is where I stand. But you will notice that my arguments on this matter have very, very rarely depended on my resort to this religious argument. Because I am not addressing fellow members of my church, but others in America, those who are people of faith, and those who are not. So my arguments have been historical, legal, constitutional, moral, strategic, utilitarian. And they have been arguments - about American history, Western civilization, and winning a war. They have not been religious arguments. And I certainly don't believe that opposition to torture depends on a religious base. Many, many atheists and agnostics have been heroes in the long history of outlawing torture. The two most influential on me, over the years, have been Camus and Orwell, two atheists whose sense of morality outshines that of many Christians.

This, to me, is the critical distinction between a Christianist and a mere Christian. One wants to infuse politics with religion; the other wants to respect both, separately, and to keep religion private. I should add I do not want to banish the word "God" from the public square. But I do want that invocation to be as thin and as empty and as formal as the Founders intended. The current Republican party has reinvented itself as a force on opposite grounds. The party of Huckabee and Romney, the party of Hewitt and Dobson, the party of Ponnuru and Neuhaus is emphatically not a secular party.

And that is why part of me, I confess, wants Huckabee to win. So he can lose. So the GOP can lose - as spectacularly and humiliatingly as possible. If we are to rid conservatism of this theocratic cancer, we need to start over. Maybe it has to get worse before it can get better. But it is certainly too late for fellow-traveling Christianists like Lowry and Krauthammer to start whining now. This is their party. And they asked for every last bit of it.

John Cole agrees.

I would appreciate if there were two secular political parties in this country, not just one. We have gotten by for over two hundred years without having a political party that is modeled on Hezbollah. I do not use that comparison lightly, for the Republicans keep trying to portray themselves as "the party of God" and in that regard, they differ not a whit from Hezbollah, Kahanism or, for that matter, the Taliban.

As much as I have contempt for the Democratic Party, as any regular reader of this blog knows, I have utter distain for the theological anti-science party that the Republicans have become. The Republicans need to lose, and lose big. It has to be made clear to the GOP that if they don't mend their ways and get back to being a national secular party that adheres to the values of the Founding Fathers and the Constitution, that they are going to be relegated to being just another lunatic fringe that will eventually evaporate.

And then the secular conservatives can try again.