State affiliates abandoning Christian Coalition

Religious conservatives are in revolt, but not against whom you might think.

Out in the heartland, they are closing down state chapters of the Christian Coalition, the Associated Press reports.

The most recent chapter to shut its doors is in Alabama.

[Chapter president John Giles] said he and his Alabama colleagues have "a dozen hard reasons" for the action but would elaborate on only one — a perception that the coalition's leadership was diverting itself from traditional concerns such as abortion and same-sex marriage to address other issues ranging from the environment to Internet access.

Now, lest you start to think that the national Christian Coalition has suddenly become a hotbed of secular humanism, the most cursory glance at the group's website turns up plenty of invective against the traditional conservative bugaboos of homosexuality, abortion and insufficiently religious-themed entertainment. The site also contains calls to action for making the Bush tax cuts permanent, for passing a "fetal pain" act to protect the unborn, and for allowing churches to endorse political candidates. The depth and breadth of social conservative wish-lists is here. So, what could Mr. Giles be complaining about?

Well, it turns out that Roberta Combs, national president of the Christian Coalition has joined with other advocacy groups, including some liberal groups, to protect net neutrality.

Mrs. Combs said, “Under the new rules, there is nothing to stop the c able and phone companies from not allowing consumers to have access to speech that they don’t support. What if a cable company with a pro-choice Board of Directors decides that it doesn’t like a pro-life organization using its high-speed network to encourage pro-life activities? Under the new rules, they could slow down the pro-life web site, harming their ability to communicate with other pro-lifers — and it would be legal. We urge Congress to move aggressively to save the Internet — and allow ideas rather than money to control what Americans can access on the World Wide Web.

Now, who besides Big Telecom could have a problem with that?

Why, down-home conservatives, that's who! These are the folks who like their political advocacy ignorant, intolerant, and emotional. Net neutrality? Who cares about that when there's homos tryin' to get married?

The national Christian Coalition is working to preserve the rights of Christians to organize and communicate over the Internet, and the state chapters consider that a distraction.

This is the monster that the GOP has created. These people could not possibly care less about policies to make the lives of Americans better. They hate gay people. They hate brown people. They fear foreigners. They fear female sexuality. That's all they know, and they don't want to learn anything else. And, if you try to teach them anything else, they will run as far away from you, as fast as they can.

There is no way on earth that the Republican Party can satisfy these people without losing the vast majority of Americans who believe that there is more to politics than abortion and gay marriage.

It is not just the Christian Coalition that is splintering. The GOP electoral coalition itself is in mortal danger.