Interesting Confession of a White Christain GOPer

[Remey688]

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Confessions of a white Christian Republican

By James P. Gannon
Thu Jun 16, 6:50 AM ET




When Democratic National Chairman Howard Dean said the other day that the Republicans were pretty much a "white, Christian party," I must admit I felt a guilty sense of self-recognition. He had nailed me cold, dead to rights. I looked in the mirror and confessed, "Yes, I am a white Christian, and I am a Republican."
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Let's get the facts out here:



• I have been white all my life. I was born white in Minneapolis, one of the whitest cities in America. When I was growing up - in the white-bread 1950s, when "multicultural" meant that both Irish Catholics and Italian Catholics lived in the same parish - I knew only white people. There were only two kinds of people in the world, as far as I knew - Catholics and "non-Catholics." You couldn't marry non-Catholics, and you couldn't go to funerals or weddings in non-Catholic churches.



• Fact No. 2: We were Christians, though we never thought of ourselves that way. "Christian" had a vague, slightly non-Catholic feel to it, and it wasn't until after Pope John XXIII and Vatican II that Catholics began to feel comfortable being called "Christians."



• Fact No. 3, and here's where Dean has overlooked something important - we were white Christians, but we were not Republicans. Republicans were mostly Protestant, wealthy and members of country clubs. We were Catholic, middle-class and Democrats.



For most of my adult life, I considered myself a Democrat and voted for Democrats for president - from John F. Kennedy in 1960 to Bill Clinton in 1992. I began voting for Republican presidential candidates, and thinking of myself as Republican, only after it became abundantly clear that people with my views on abortion, prayer in school and other moral issues were no longer considered welcome in the Democratic Party.



A whole lot of us crossed over, taking our whiteness and our Christian beliefs into the party of the country-club set. We didn't feel so much that we had abandoned the Democratic Party as it had abandoned us. Borrowing the spirit of the "No Irish Need Apply" mentality of my grandparents' time, the Democrats posted a "no pro-lifers need apply" sign on their party doors. It became clear that Catholic Democratic officeholders (the Kennedys, Bidens, Kerrys and the rest) had to check their Catholic beliefs at the door and proclaim the Democratic pro-choice loyalty oath to retain good standing in their party.



So if the Republican Party has become the "white, Christian party," as Dean charges, it's partly so because the Democratic Party has made white Christians feel so uncomfortable in its ranks. The Democrats have bent over backwards to please minority groups - blacks, gays, angry feminists and atheists - at the expense of us old white guys (and gals - yes, we're not afraid to call our wives that) who grew up not feeling guilty about being white or Christian.



Of course, Dean is also overlooking an important fact, and that is the only successful Democratic presidential candidates in recent times were two white Christian guys - Jimmy Carter and Clinton, both red-state good ole boys with Southern accents and some familiarity with Scripture. So when Dean vaguely implies that "white Christian" is a pejorative term, he's playing to a Democratic base that's growing narrower and narrower - non-white, non-Christian, non-Southern and non-winning.



As a crossover Republican, I applaud Dean's take-no-prisoners approach to distilling his party into its purest essence. Displaying barely concealed contempt for white Christians is Dean's formula for ethnic and theological purity in the party, and I say, "Pour it on, Howard!" Keep it up and the Democratic Party will be confined to a few zip codes in Manhattan, Hollywood and San Francisco.



The rest of us can just say a little prayer of thanks and join our white Christian neighbors in voting straight Republican.



James P. Gannon is a retired journalist and author of A Life in Print: Selections from the Work of a Reporter, Columnist and Editor, published in March.

[FightingFalcon]

Let us not forget that the South used to be heavily Democratic - as were many evangelical Christians.

The Democrats have become so incredibly anti-religion, however, that many of those Christians have left and gone to the Republican Party. Sure, you can still find many hard-core Christians in the Democratic Party but they are the exception and not the rule.

(Un)Fortunately, the Republicans are making the same mistakes as the Democrats. The Dems have been steadily losing power since 1994 because of their exclusionary policices. The GOP has been gaining power thanks to President Bush's "compassionate conservatism" and the idea of the GOP being a big tent that many different people can peacefully exist in. However, recently the GOP has been giving in to the Religious Right and are turning off many Moderates and Independents. Sure, the GOP should throw a bone every now and then to the evangalical Christians that helped Bush win re-election, but they don't have to become the party of just Christians. If they think that way, they too will lose in '08. As I posted a couple months ago here, it is my belief that if the Republicans continue to act as they have in recent history, they will lose in '08. Whether its the Terri Schiavo case, the federal budget, the PATRIOT Act, etc. the Republicans are showing themselves to be very anti-small government and anti-fiscal conservatism.

The only good that can come from all of this is the people rejecting both parties and voting Libertarian!

[101ABN]

I can totally relate to everything Gannon says.

I remember when Democrats were about something, and I was proud to be one. The great decline began in 1972 when elements of the Rad-Left hijacked the party during the convention. They threw the nod to McGovern and the party was never the same after that.

I voted for my first Republican for president that year and no it wasn't Nixon. (It was a write in candidate.)

I kept the "D" registration for many years, hoping against hope that someday the more moderate voices would take back the party of Jefferson and Jackson.

I am currently registered as "Declines to State," which is how they define independent in the Golden State.

[retire05]

Yep, Gannon is right. I also lived in a neighborhood where there were two kinds of Christians, Catholic Irish and Catholic Italian. But the odd thing is, at my Catholic grade school we had whites (Germans, Irish, Italian, etc), blacks (before segregation) and Orientals. They were all Catholic. So when everyone started gritching about all races going to school together, I thought "what's the bid deal?"
My family were yellow dogs. Irish immigrant stock that thought Harry Truman could walk on water. FDR ranked right up there with God, and JFK was his son. Then came Carter. Nuff said about him. When Reagan ran, the party had left me behind. I was no longer a Democrat (or at least I did not adhere to the platform of the Dems any longer) but my family would die if I voted Republican. So I voted for Reagan, and just kept quiet about it. I knew someday the Dems would produce another FDR, HST, or JFK. They never did. And when they nominated Clinton, I was beside myself. The party of my family had just taken it's last breath.
Now Screamin' Dean will take it even farther into the realm of leftist, socialist, feel-good politicos. With men like Teddy Kennedy, Harry Reid and the rest of the wackos leading the party, I fear that the Dems will never again be in touch with the people it so deparately wants to represent. It has become the party that yaps about special interest groups but panders to them, leaving the average Joe America behind.
It is sad in some ways, isn't it?

[Remey688]

Reagan summed it up the best: "I did leave The Democrat Party. The party left me!

[101ABN]

remey688 said:

Reagan summed it up the best: "I did leave The Democrat Party. The party left me!

He didn't call it the "Democrat" party.

I don't know who started that, Probably Rush.
Frankly, I find it a bit annoying.

How are you Remy?

[MARIO]

Good article, remey.

Haven't seen you on the board for some time. How are things out there in Oklahoma?

Take care, buddy.