The GOP has, for years, claimed to be the party of family values. Unfortunately, that title is more like a badge worn on one’s lapel than an innate commitment to morality. Even worse, this carefully chosen description is primarily tailored to encompass those issues the GOP feels will garner votes. This seeming manipulation is no accident. In fact, I think it’s safe to say that the GOP practices selective morality…the kind that makes a revelation of hypocrisy all the more significant.

Consider the facts. John McCain wants us to believe he shares the values of the evangelical voters he seeks to court. Unfortunately, his own history suggests something else…yet that hasn’t stopped McCain from moving to claim he’s always been aligned with Christian values. Well, if one believes that Ralph Reed represents family values, perhaps John McCain is entitled to wear his new badge.

In the first of the two following videos, Dems Rapid Response sheds some much needed light on the kind of values the GOP has actually come to represent under the leadership of men like George Bush. Yes, they consistently rail against abortion and same-sex marriage…while condoning deceit, deception, and dishonesty…the kind that robs hard-working Americans of opportunities and insures that the political elite will maintain their hold upon wealth and power.

The truth of the matter is that Ralph Reed, once a burgeoning star in the GOP (who diligently mouthed the party’s moral mumbo jumbo), was exposed as the corrupt cash chasing charlatan he’s always been. In fact, his rapid ascendency was formulaic…and his speedy demise deservedly mimicked that of many of his crooked Christian cohorts.

The fact that John McCain is happy to attach his fundraising efforts to Reed is a testament to the priorities he and his party share. The hypocrisy is revealed in their simultaneous attempts to connect Barack Obama’s secular sensibilities with all things un-American…and therefore paint them as lacking moral justification.

In the second video, Matthew 25, a Christian political action committee, offers some much needed contrast…and begins the difficult work of dislodging the faithful from many of the fraudulent fabrications about Barack Obama that are being fostered by legions of GOP loyalists.

Sadly, we’ve become a nation that finds much of its worth in the denigration of others…and the blinding bravado of dogmatic intransigence. If it isn’t the gays or those who favor a woman’s right to choose or the hotel chain that offers adult movies to patrons or the network that allows Janet Jackson to expose her breast, it’s the French and those other nations that have chosen secularism and the full separation of church and state.

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