New York Values!

Senator Ted Cruz shot himself in the foot. You don’t come into someone’s house and criticize their beliefs.

At G.O.P. Dinner, Donald Trump Serves Heaping Helping of ‘New York Values’
By Jonathan Martin
New York Times
April 15, 2016

Donald J. Trump on Thursday used the last high-profile gathering of Republicans before Tuesday’s New York primary to extol “New York values,” repurposing Senator Ted Cruz’s attack on him into a tribute to what he described as his hometown’s virtues.

Mr. Trump, reading at times from prepared notes, unfurled a series of attributes and vignettes to evoke the city, drawing applause and encouragement from a boisterous group of Republicans at a fund-raising dinner in Manhattan, called the New York State Republican Gala, which drew the party’s three remaining presidential candidates.
[…]
Mr. Cruz has been dogged here by his derisive suggestion earlier in the campaign that Mr. Trump represents “New York values” and, while refusing to back off his characterization, has been unable to formulate an explanation for what he meant. At a debate in January he said the reference was in regard to the city’s cultural liberalism, but he also pointed to the “focus around money and the media” in New York.

The thing is we all know what he meant about values, his values “Christian conservative” values, not Christian but “Christian conservative” and I think Senator Cruz

But in a way this whole campaign is about “Christian conservative” values. I think ever since President Reagan the Republican Party has become a party of “Christian conservative” values. At one time to be a Republican was to want smaller government and lower taxes but ever since the Moral Majority it has moved away from financial conservative to a theocracy of far right conservative Christians. We see this in Tennessee trying to make the Bible their official state book. We see this in state legislatures passing “Religious Freedom” laws which are anything but religious freedom and instead are trying to impose their beliefs on everyone else.

An article in the Daily Kos about Christian privilege had this to say,

Ted Cruz: 'I'm a Christian first, American second.' Imagine if Muslim or Jewish politician said that
By Ian Reifowitz
January 22, 2016

His Christianity is probably the last thing Ted Cruz ever thought would give him problems. However, a new ad produced by Americans United for Values attacks him for being, get this, a “false prophet.” Among other slings and arrows hurled, the ad slams Cruz for not tithing—donating 10 percent of his income to charity—something many Christians believe is a sacred obligation. Cruz, it seems, has donated only about one percent of his income—which came to around $1 million annually—to charity between 2006 and 2010.

In response to the ad and other attacks on his Christianity as well as his conservatism, Cruz responded:

“I’m a Christian first, American second, conservative third and Republican fourth...I’ll tell ya, there are a whole lot of people in this country that feel exactly the same way.”

The politics of this aside, I want to highlight here something we might call Christian Privilege. Could you imagine, for example, a Jewish candidate for president saying that he or she was a Jew first and an American second? Now imagine the sheer outrage if a Muslim American of any prominence whatsoever declared that he or she was Muslim first and American second. People’s heads would explode.

Back in the sixties when President Kennedy was running for office the big worry about Kennedy was would his Catholic religion overly influence him, well now in 2016 we now have a candidate who is embracing that they will ignore the Constitution and follow the Bible.

Yes, the Republican Party has changed; even here in Connecticut I see a shift in the party it is still financial conservative but there are elements in the Connecticut Republican Party that are pushing it towards “family values” we saw a glimmer of that when the bill was introduced to repeal insurance coverage for trans people.

I have no doubt that if the Republicans gained control of the government that we would see our “Religious Freedom” law expanded from the narrow law that it is now to a broad sweeping law and we would see our LGBT non-discrimination laws rolled back.

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Update 4:00PM

I just came across this article about Governor Kasich and his advice to women,

John Kasich Tells Woman Asking About Sexual Assault To Avoid Parties With Alcohol
ThinkProgess
By Alice Ollstein
April 15, 2016

At a town hall in Watertown, Pennsylvania on Friday, a local college student asked Ohio Governor and presidential candidate John Kasich what he would do as president to make young women like her feel safer on campus. She cited what many consider a current epidemic of “violence, harassment and rape” at colleges and universities.

Kasich at first ignored the student’s question and turned to his staffer, joking that he had to go and didn’t want to miss his ride. He then suggested that all colleges offer victims of sexual assault “confidential reporting,” rape kits, and “the opportunity to be able to pursue justice after you have had some time to reflect on it all.” He concludes by telling the woman, a first-year at New York’s Saint Lawrence University: “I will give you one bit of advice. Don’t go to parties where there’s a lot of alcohol.”

The Democratic National Committee blasted Kasich for “blaming victims of sexual and domestic violence,” and noted, “It is no wonder women are turning away from the Republican field in huge numbers.”

Remember the Republican who said that you can’t get pregnant from a rape or the other Republican who to keep your legs crossed?

These are the people who want to run this country.