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Originally Posted by j8ear
I continue to maintain that Bush will persue additional centrist policies, which includes banning gay marriage.
-bear
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Banning gay marriage is not a centrist ideal. It is a Right wing ideal. It comes from a religiously based dogma which is now the base of the socially conservative Republican party. Banning gay marriage is socially conservative and thus right wing and not center. The biggest ruse that the current Republican's have been able to purpetrate to date is convincing people that they are moderate or centrist. They use the fact that many people support them to develop this argument. It is fallacious, however, because the "scale" of right, left and center does not move, reducing civil rights is still a reactionary position, and just because 50 million people voted for Bush does not make it centrist. There are probably people who consider themselves centrists but believe in banning gay marriages, but these people are far from the majority and certainly do not make the policy a centrist one.
Also, if history is any reference, people once felt the EXACT same way about interracial marriages, so using that as an example actually weakens your argument rather than strengthening it.
BTW, sorry Mr. M. for hijacking your thread a bit. In answer to your original question, I believe that a man who does not need to worry about re-election is a man who does not need to worry about moderating or dilluting his views. He will, if anything, be more forceful about pushing the Republican agenda than ever before because He feels that's what God wants him to do.