Texas Gov. Rick Perry has turned his office into a command post in the far right’s purposely divisive culture wars over the past decade. The governor has shamelessly used faith and issues like school prayer, same-sex marriage and creationism to divide voters in the service of his political career. And the likelihood that he will once again wield faith as a political weapon in a campaign for the White House grows stronger — in fact, it appears he’s already doing it.
The Texas Freedom Network has pulled together a record of Gov. Perry’s positions and statements on issues that have animated the culture wars in Texas and across the country. Check it out here. And check back as we add more to this resource in the coming months.
TFN:
Not being from Texas and not knowing the history of Rick Perry, I am wondering about something that I sort of sensed in your reading materials. Are you saying that Perry does not personally believe in all of these positions that he takes? He just looks out across Texas, sees a vast sea of kooks, and then panders to all of the kooks for support by saying what they want to hear and doing what they want him to do—rather than what he thinks is right. He does not believe in all of this stuff–not really—it is just a political strategy to keep and maintain power and position.
The reason I ask is because I have read several articles about Al Mohler (famous Southern Baptist leader and current Baptist seminary President). These articles state that he does not really believe (deep down inside) in the tenets of the so-called 1979 conservative resurgence in the Southern Baptist Convention. Rather, before the conservatives took over the convention, he was largely liberal-moderate in his beliefs, stance, and positions—and had been that way sincerely and for a very long time. I have read such testimonies by people who claim to have been close friends of his for a long time. However, when the far right conservatives did take over the convention in 1979, he switched his path to hardline conservatism to prevent Judge Pressler and Paige Patterson from crushing him like a jackboot on a June bug—and to acquire the support of those two old birds so he could move quickly up the ladder and become a BIG MAN in the SBC hierarchy. Based on what I have heard, I would personally go so far as to speculate that Mohler could lead a nationwide liberal-moderate revival in the SBC, even while the dead bodies of Pressler and Patterson are still in the process of cooling down from their demise at the hands of old age.
So, with that hypothetical example given, is TFN saying that Perry may be faking it too—gaming the people of Texas as it were.
I am given to understand that the governor was, once upon a time, pro-choice and a liberal Democrat. There is also a long running rumor (he “dispelled” in 2004) involving his sexual orientation. He is a politician who learned at the knee of Karl Rove. The Bush family detests him. He supposedly shot a coyote while jogging one morning, but the story doesn’t hold up under any kind of forensic scrutiny.
That’s the way unofficial biography.
About the only reason I hope that Perry gets the GOP nod for presidential candidate is that according to the latest figures, he doesn’t stand a chance against Obama.
I loath the man and that is putting it mildly. He is a hypocrite in the first degree and will do or be whatever serves his purposes at the moment. He has squandered huge amounts of money on his personal housing while cutting services for children, the weak and the disabled. He reminds me of the old comedian, Brother Dave Gardner who said, “When a man is down KICK HIM!”
This, miserable state, alone with all other states run by RepubliCANT governors, doesn’t teach our children properly. Thanks to a former guv, our kids spend all of their classroom time learning how to pass tests instead of learning what the tests are about! No social studies, no governmental studies, just learn the idiot tests. Our children cannot speak correctly, spell correctly, or even how to make change in a store properly. Thanks to inadequate teaching, this state,
like many others is going down the tube. IS OUR CHILDREN LEARNING?