Fire & brimstone, we hardly knew ye

As I predicted - not that it was at all hard to predict, mind you - the Religious Right is taking a middle path between splitting off from the Republican party and saluting to the establishment candidate. The middle path is to back Huckabee all the way up until the convention and then grumblingly vote for the establishment candidate in November. All bark and no bite, of course.

But it's interesting that James Dobson is so anti-McCain. Why? After all, McCain is pro-life (if not as fanatically so as Huckabee). Apparently it's because of McCain' politically reasonable stances on some issues that, even for the Religious Right, are pretty minor:

Dobson released a statement Tuesday that criticized McCain for his support of embryonic stem cell research, his opposition to a federal anti-gay marriage amendment and for his temper and use of foul language.

He said if McCain were the nominee, he would not cast a ballot for president for the first time in his life. [emphasis mine]

Foul language?

There's two alternative hypotheses here, it seems to me. The first one is the "Southern Baptism = white supremacism" argument - that it's McCain's stance on immigration, not on stem cells, that's enough to keep Dobson home on election day.

The second hypothesis is that the Right sees the writing on the wall, and knows that it's losing a lot of cache within the Republican party and the American public in general. Our current dire economic and international problems are more than enough to show America how stupid it is to sit around arguing about gay marriage. It looks almost as if the Religious Right is in danger of taking the fall for the entire Bush fiasco, leaving the Republican party to the stockbrokers and warmongers. And what does a political movement do when it's threatened with irrelevance? Become ever more strident and shrill, of course! Compromise less when logic says compromise more. Make yourself seem so fanatical and crazy that your party can't afford to ignore you! It's North Korean negotiating tactics applied to Republican factionalism.

So if the second hypothesis is true, it means the Religious Right's power in America is breaking. Which seems like a pure positive for America...but don't break out the champagne just yet. People are still going to vote Republican in massive numbers, even if it's not their pastor telling them to do it. And they'll find new reasons to believe - militarism may replace religious fundamentalism as the foundation of conservatism in America. And that is a scary thought.