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Written by Cory Liebmann
Aug 25, 2011
The Republican Party in Wisconsin has been moving further to the political right for decades. But in recent years, the party has been taking the fast track to the fringe.
The culture warriors and other extremists have taken over and largely purged the GOP of real conservatives and traditional Republicans. Although the current Republican establishment uses some of the same words, it has dramatically changed the definitions.
In 1982, Republican Wisconsin Gov. Lee Dreyfus signed into law the nation’s first statewide gay rights law. Contrast that with today’s Republican Party, which has been hijacked by religious fundamentalists.
Many of the Wisconsin Republicans in positions of power today are the same people who promoted the discriminatory 2006 constitutional amendment banning marriage equality. Today’s Republicans rant against “big government” unless they are busy forcing their theocracy-based big government onto the personal lives of others.
Today’s Republicans have elevated some of the most hateful organizations in our state. The most recent example came during the recall elections, when the Republican machine funneled massive amounts of money through the gay-obsessed group Wisconsin Family Action. And, as if we didn’t already have enough of those kinds of extremist front groups, Republicans reached into their endless supply of special interest cash to establish even more of them.
You can tell quite a bit about some of the new front groups based on their leaders. As Dan Bice of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported, the spokesperson for one of the new Republican front groups recently graduated from a non-accredited fundamentalist school that describes itself as “unashamedly Fundamentalist and militantly separatist.”
A new poll underscores just how extreme the Republican Party in this state has gone. The poll found that Wisconsin Republicans favor either Texas Gov. Rick Perry or U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., for president.
Bachmann is known for her over-the-top rhetoric and her mixing of rigid fundamentalism with public policy and politics. She has repeatedly described being gay as “bondage” or dysfunction. She has said the very use of the word “gay” is “part of Satan.” Her husband runs a counseling center that promotes the abusive idea of “praying away the gay.”
Perry used an arena prayer-a-palooza event as his prelude to entering the presidential race. Running for president is an odd choice for a governor who’s expressed interest in seceding from the union. But Perry is consistent in his role as a culture warrior. For instance, he’s continually promoted abstinence-only education in Texas, even though the policy has caused a massive jump not only in teen pregnancy but also in repeat teen pregnancy.
Neither Bachmann nor Perry is a traditional conservative Republican. They’re both lunatic fringe leaders with an aggressive religious agenda that defies the vision of our Founding Fathers. But they are the choice of the majority of Wisconsin Republicans.
That says everything about how far to the extremes the state’s GOP party has been pulled.
