Christian Conservative Leaders Threaten Third Party Run pt. 2

Richard Land, Eternally Hawt

In part two of our analysis of a Newsweek interview with Richard Land President of the Southern Baptist Convention’s Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, Land discusses Mitt Romney’s prospects with the religious right.

"bzzzzz-whiiiirrr-*POP*- boop"

What Land wants most is a JFK style speech from Mitt, but he wants a few specific things from the Morman Candidate.

He wants Mitt to stop equating Mormonism to Christianity, “He is not going to win that argument”, “What I think Romney has to do is he has to give a speech in which he defends the right of a Mormon to run for president and appeals to Americans' basic sense of fair play.”

And Land wants Mitt to promise to have an administration with no higher percentage of Mormons than in the population.

Again, Land is unconcerned of the religious differences between himself and Mitt Romney. What he is concerned with is ensuring they have access to the administration. This is high level political power brokering. Mitt is being asked to make public concessions in order to gain the support of Land’s influential voting bloc.

Land is single-mindedly focused on promoting his groups agenda, and you cannot blame him, that’s his group’s states goal. But the next time someone tells an Atheist to calm down, to stop being so evangelical about their beliefs, keep in mind that religious influence still seeps into our government, poisoning reasonable debate with dogmatic absolutism. Land’s group and others are actively trying to push their religious values on other people who do not share them. By overturning Roe v. Wade, they seek to make what should be their private religious beliefs, publicly enforced law, sounds familiar. Salman Rushdie has said this is the key problem with Islam, the politicization of religion, we ought to be on the lookout for it domestically as well.

Richard Land’s problems with the front running candidates has lead to questions about the potential of Christian Conservatives running a third candidate. Land is quick to point out that it could only happen if Rudy Giuliani gets the nomination. But adds, “this is not a bluff”.

The big mystery is why they don’t support Huckabee, Land’s paradoxical answer seems to be that the Arkansas Governor doesn’t have enough support to earn the Christian Conservatives support. A religious Catch 22 that doesn’t make sense to me.

Land says, “when I am asked why Huckabee isn't doing better, I can only answer that that's up to the voters.” It seems to me another way to answer that question is to say, “Because you haven’t backed him”.