“There are no social issues in the Contract because those issues do not belong at the Federal level.”
Darn straight, they don’t BELONG there—but they ARE there!
Party policies/planks define and reflect an underlying philosophy. Whether or not those tenets be decided at town, county, state, or federal level, they’re intended to flesh out that underlying philosophy and to portray the default position of its standard-bearers absent deliberate disavowal by individual candidates (as if candidates are always candid!). Otherwise, why bother with party labels?
Part of the philosophy of today’s GOP, I think, is the notion that truth & error, right & wrong are knowable options, not exclusively as a result of Judeo-Christian/Western Civilization identity but as a result of common sense. The “social” issues I think we’re talking about here (abortion, gay marriage, embryonic stem cell research, cloning, among others), issues never directly addressed in the Constitution, have come to be portrayed as religious issues only because certain religions, religions that espouse the knowability of right-wrong options (or natural law), still oppose them. Up until late in the past century, churches and “religion” in general needn’t have played any role at all in identifying and opposing these obvious affronts to natural law. It was common sense to believe that the deliberate killing of a preborn was at least as heinous as killing a postborn. Even if the former offense wasn’t punished (and in the overwhelming majority of cases, it wasn’t), the idea that such life-taking could become “legal” was simply unthinkable. Ditto the “right” of gay marriage, etc.
As to inserting “religious” items into any platform, it wouldn’t be necessary if newly enacted laws hadn’t already bullied their way into the federal square.
>>issues never directly addressed in the Constitution
Not addressed in the Constitution, perhaps, but observe the view of at least one of the founders:
"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism, who should labor to subvert these great pillars of human happiness, these firmest props of the duties of men and citizens. The mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought to respect and to cherish them. A volume could not trace all their connections with private and public felicity. Let it simply be asked: Where is the security for property, for reputation, for life, if the sense of religious obligation desert the oaths which are the instruments of investigation in courts of justice ? And let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Whatever may be conceded to the influence of refined education on minds of peculiar structure, reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.
It is substantially true that virtue or morality is a necessary spring of popular government. The rule, indeed, extends with more or less force to every species of free government. Who that is a sincere friend to it can look with indifference upon attempts to shake the foundation of the fabric?"
--from President George Washington's farewell address, 1796
Certainly Whitman's ilk have no interest in conserving the foundation of the fabric.
Nibble nibble like a mouse, Whitman's chewing on our house.
Quack, waddle: RAT.