Are "Culture Warriors" Becoming a GOP Liability?

Here in Virginia and in other states - especially "red states" - across the country, the Republican Party continues to shamelessly prostitute itself to the ugliest and most extreme elements of the "Christian Right."   Perhaps this is the expected result of a political party that has allowed itself to become a sectarian party dominated by "Christian" extremists who, if the truth be told, want a far theocracy which would throw the U.S. Constitution on the trash heap.  But, in Virginia and elsewhere, this self-prostitution is becoming more and more of a long term liability as urban areas and younger voters reject the toxic message of those not so far distant from ISIS in terms of their desire to force their religion on all.  As the New York Times notes, Democrats are finally waking up to the fact that calling out GOP extremists can be a winning approach.  Here are column highlights:

Not long ago, it would have been unusual for a Democratic senatorial candidate in Iowa to run a powerful abortion-rights television ad like the one recently broadcast by Representative Bruce Braley.

[P]ersonhood ideas, shared by at least five other Republican candidates for United States Senate this year, have been radical for years. What’s new is that Democrats are increasingly willing to say so. For years they were cowed by the religious right into changing the subject when abortion or birth control or same-sex marriage came up. But now, increasingly assured that public opinion supports their positions, Democrats have become more aggressive in challenging Republicans about their beliefs.

The decision to go on the offensive is in part designed to incite the anger of women and draw support in the November elections, particularly that of single women, who tend to vote in small numbers in midterms. But it is also a reflection of the growing obsolescence of traditional Republican wedge issues in state after state. For a younger generation of voters, the old right-wing nostrums about the “sanctity of life” and the “sanctity of marriage” have lost their power, revealed as intrusions on human freedom. Democrats “did win the culture war,” Alex Castellanos, a Republican strategist, admitted to The New York Times recently.

One of the most telling signs of the cultural change is the number of Republicans who are bucking conservative activists and trying to soft-pedal or even retreat from their ideology. . . . . Several other Republican candidates are trumpeting their support for over-the-counter birth control pills, though they remain opposed to the insurance coverage of contraception required by the Affordable Care Act.

In Oregon, the Republican candidate for the Senate, Monica Wehby, is running an ad promoting her support of same-sex marriage.

The shift in public opinion might not be enough for Democrats to keep the Senate this year. But over time, it may help spell an end to the politics of cultural division.

I look forward to the day when Christofascists are not welcome within the GOP - or in decent society.  They need to become cultural piranhas.