Will The Long Game Always Work for Christian Social Conservatives


I read recently an article by a liberal who complimented anti abortion operatives for the discipline in "the long game." Anti abortion has worked for decades to turn the Supreme Court against Roe v Wade. Conventional wisdom is they will succeed. 

A recent blog by a well-known Christian challenges his brand of Christianity to do the same with same sex marriage. He acknowledges the conservative faith has been made smaller, at least in part, because of its opposition to gay rights. He says Christians need to stop being jerks about gays rights. Call gay marriage a sin, he writes, but do it in a nice way. If that doesn't turn the tide for the faith's numbers nothing can be done about it. 

Something can be done about it, of course. Conservatives can admit the liberal wing of the faith is right and LGBT people are equal in all respects. Conservatives, whose average age is rising and will be zeroed out in a few decades, do not want to change. In this case, playing the "long game," saying the same thing and hoping events turn the tide for you, was a fatal mistake.

Was anti abortion successful in the long game? That depends on when the "game" is over. Their success or lack of it depends on one aspect of the battle. Anti abortion has so far been able to avoid making the issue a battle between God and women. The false narrative keeps being repeated that women are "victims" not decision makers in an abortion. If parts of anti abortion start telling the truth, that ultimately women make the decision, or if judges make the decision, the long game will become longer than anti abortion operatives planned. Their definition of "the end" is an anti abortion Supreme Court. If that is not the end of the game things will change. 

It seems inevitable to me a "God against women" narrative will hurt the faith the same way anti gay is hurting it now. Playing the long game will have been a mistake if abortion turns out to put women behind bars and further reduces numbers in the faith. 

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