Last week, I noted that social conservatives were being thrown under the bus by Republican politicians.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one who noticed:
“When asked if he believes the Republican Party will change its position and support gay marriage in a Wednesday Newsmax interview, [Mike] Huckabee remarked, “They might, and if they do, they’re going to lose a large part of their base because evangelicals will take a walk.”
In typical Huckabee fashion, he went on to make a rather eloquent and compassionate argument on what is obviously a controversial issue. You may or may not agree with his views on traditional marriage, but as RNC Chairman Reince Priebus recently noted: “I always tell people: Listen to Governor Mike Huckabee. I don’t know anyone that talks about them any better.”
Huckabee stood firm to principle, saying: “I think politicians have an obligation to be thermostats, not just thermometers. They’re not simply to reflect the temperature of the room, or the culture, as it were.” But he also avoided the kind of incendiary rhetoric that too many social conservatives have exploited in the past for publicity.
And this struck me as being in clear contrast — on both counts — to something else I read today.
“More than a decade or so ago, in the Weekly Standard, David Frum warned that if we gay activists kept up the campaign for marriage equality, he would favor putting more police power behind enforcing sodomy laws. Today, he stood in front of the Supreme Court and gave a speech.” (Emphasis mine.)
(More specifically, in Sullivan’s book, “The Conservative Soul,” he writes that Frum called for “reaffirmation by states of a sodomy law.”)
So here we have Frum using harsh rhetoric (and means?) against gays when that was deemed popular. And today, like a good thermometer, he continues to reflect the evolving temperature of the room.
Enjoy it while it lasts.