CINCINNATI (TDB) -- McDonald's just told the Rev. Donald Wildmon's American Family Association to go pound salt. Or something like that. And SF Gate's Mark Morford says it's a sea change marking the ebb of the evangelical right as a potent force in American politics and culture. If he's correct, historians may someday trace the ebbtide's origins back to Ohio in 2006, when GOP gubernatorial candidate Ken Blackwell's alliance with the Christian right had the same effect as Drano on a clogged sink. They swirled and disappeared down the drain. Looking back at Blackwell's rout at the polls, the swingiest of political swing states seemed to have sent a message: We've had enough!!! This year, John McCain pretty much ignored the evangelicals as he steamed towards the Republican presidential nomination. Anybody hear much from Mike Huckabee after the Ohio presidential primary last March? Here's some of Morford's adios to the Christian right, which he said is fading into "the dustbin of history like dried housefly limbs after a sneeze."
"As the Bush era crested, as the neocons' power reached nuclear levels, when female nipples and f-words and evil gay agendas ruled the news, the evangelical Right -- led by the most virulent, spittle-flecked gaggle of mental throwbacks to ever stain the American newswires, Focus on the Family (Dr. James Dobson's clan) and the American Family Association and its nefarious leader, the Rev. Donald Wildmon -- these groups controlled, for a brief, awful moment, the national dialogue. They were the temporary arbiters of taste, the warped conscience of a freaked-out culture. And lo, it was ugly.
Rejoice, won't you? For their time is over.
Did you know the AFA recently boycotted McDonald's? That's right, this once semi-powerful tub of right-wing brain-caulk recently declared a comestible fatwa against America's foremost purveyor of toxic foodstuffs because, apparently, some high-ranking McD's VP just joined the board of directors of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, which, to the AFA, somehow translates directly into free pink condoms and mind-controlling rainbow flags in every toxic God-fearing Happy Meal.
Did you read about that? No? Of course you didn't. Here is why: No one cared. "
From Good As You, here's a copy of the letter McDonald's sent Wildmon in response to the boycott threat. Wildmon has since urged his followers to boycott the fast food chain.
This year, John McCain pretty much ignored the evangelicals...
ReplyDeleteWhat?? Among this comical list of McCain's flip-flops are the following:
McCain wanted to change the Republican Party platform to protect abortion rights in cases of rape and incest. Now he doesn't.
He argued that the NRA should not have a role in the Republican Party's policy making. Now he believes the opposite.
McCain went from saying gay marriage should be allowed, to saying gay marriage shouldn't be allowed.
In 2005, McCain endorsed intelligent design creationism, a year later he said the opposite...
McCain went from saying he would not support repeal of Roe v. Wade to saying the exact opposite.
McCain criticized TV preacher Jerry Falwell as "an agent of intolerance" in 2002, but then decided to cozy up to the man who said Americans "deserved" the 9/11 attacks.
McCain was against presidential candidates campaigning at Bob Jones University before he was for it.
And the piece points out the fact that McCain sought the support of televangelists Hagee & Parsley before the costly PR fallout.
The evidence does not appear to support the the contention that he "pretty much ignored" them.