The Religious Right and Fred Thompson

In recent days, James Dobson has made his opposition to Fred Thompson public and surprisingly loud. Thompson's chief sin in Dobson's eyes? Thompson supports a states-rights approach to the issue of so-called same-sex "marriage"-- and would support a federal constitutional amendment only if one state's laws about marriage were judged to affect those in other states. (This is a potential but not a necessary outcome.)

Interestingly, others on the Religious Right (such as Richard Land) agree with Dobson's position on the policy issue but are publicly critical of his outright rejection of Thompson, arguing that Thompson's position is reasonable. One wonders if Dobson has now strayed too far off of the reservation.

Aaron Wolf of the Chicago Daily Observer comments on the Christian Right's disdain for "federalism" on some issues-- the idea that local governance should have as much control as possible-- and thus, their lack of excitement toward Fred Thompson. (Hat tip: Darrell Dow with DowBlog.)

The Arlington Group, a powerful association of the Christian Right is, to borrow from the author of the Book of Virtues, picking a (presidential) pony. Some, ponies, like Arkansas’ Mike Huckabee, just don’t look like they can make it to the final stretch. But Fred Thompson, on the other hand, could go the distance. The problem is, to this key group is, he’s a “federalist”....at least when it comes to the “gay marriage” question.

In an interview with NRO‘s Jim Geraghty, Arlington member Gary Bauer put it plainly: “Many of us are intrigued and excited by Thompson, but we have great concerns about his advocacy of federalism in dealing with the issue of protecting the sanctity of marriage, and that is certainly an issue we want to discuss with him further.”

Geraghty’s source continues by saying that “It just seems to our legal people that America is going to end up with one definition of marriage. That’s what we want, actually, and we want that definition to be the traditional one . . . We hope to convince all the candidates that on this issue federalism is a not as high a value philosophically as making sure marriage has traditional configuration.”

Given Washington’s track record, are Christian Right leaders really so naive as to think that the institution of marriage could somehow be “protected” by a federal marriage amendment? Apparently, they are. Is federalism a mere “philosophical” value that has no practical bearing on the protection of America’s culture, traditions, and moral values? Apparently, the Christian Right thinks so...

That the Christian Right has little regard for federalism (or traditional conservatism), then, isn’t breaking news. What’s changed is that they’re now saying it out loud.