Social Conservatives Abandoning Republican Party?

Tony Perkins offers some provocative comments on the tenuous ties between the social conservative right and the Republican Party under new RNC Chairman Michael Steele:

There is not the strong connection to the Republican Party that there once was. I'm more representative of the younger generation and I don't have as strong allegiance to the Republican Party. And to the degree that they try to avoid the values issues and put them at the back of the bus, I don't have a lot of desire to mess around with that ...

Read the whole thing (via Memeorandum). I'm surprised at Perkins' generosity toward Barack Obama, who represents a presidential beachhead for the left's war on traditionalism in this country.

But see also Robert Schlesinger's essay, "Republican Party and Religious Right Heading for a Split?":

Conservatives have for a long time argued that Republicans talk the talk at election time to get votes, but are insufficiently committed when it comes to actual policies ...

... this also illustrates the broader dilemma facing Republicans right now: For what do they stand? The tensions between the various conservative coalition members were easier to smooth over when the movement was ascendant, but there's nothing like unceremoniously getting kicked into the wilderness to exacerbate tensions. Having to map a route back to power means having to resolve the differences inherent in the minimal government portion of the party—cut taxes and don't regulate things—and the religious conservatives who are less wary of using government provided it's a means to God's ends.

This is a no-brainer for me.

The GOP must stay true to core values. Party attempts to stay competitive by embracing disastrous leftist social policies will kill the party, and the various remnants of the political right will end up composing a fractured party system resulting in a long-term consolidation of Democratic Party dominance for a generation or more. I can foresee something like the turmoil on the populist left during the Second Party System of the mid-1850s, where factional competition and social strife among the Democrats split the party's coalition and paved the way for a Republican realignment in 1860 under Abraham Lincoln.

That outcome, while troubling for the direction of the country, is nevertheless preferable to the GOP's capitulation today to the culture of death that's central to the Democratic Party's agenda, as demonstrated by the rationalization of pro-abortion advocacy so extreme that live babies are being thrown away in toxic waste bags after botched late-term abortions at zip-and-rip "family planning" clinics in Florida.