Rick Perry, Culture Warrior

Dana Milbank tries to paint Rick Perry as some sort of theocrat, which of course scares the left half to death, but in the process he may be making a better case for him than he thinks:

Yes, Perry is passionately anti-government, or at least anti-this-government. But the man who suddenly tops the Republican presidential polls is no libertarian. Rick Perry is a theocrat.

By his own account, he is a cultural warrior, seeking to save marriage, Christmas and the Boy Scouts from liberals, gay people and moral relativism. His latest treatise, the Tea-Party-inspired “Fed Up!,” touches only briefly on matters such as abortion and gay marriage. For an eyeful of the full Perry, crack his 2008 book, “On My Honor.” While the rest of the political world was reading Cheney’s attacks on Colin Powell, I read about Perry’s attacks on gay scoutmasters.

In the book’s most talked-about passage, he likens homosexuality to alcoholism. “Even if an alcoholic is powerless over alcohol once it enters his body, he still makes a choice to drink,” Perry writes. “And, even if someone is attracted to a person of the same sex, he or she will makes a choice to engage in sexual activity with someone of the same gender.”

Imagine those words crossing Bush’s lips. Or these: “The radical homosexual movement seeks societal normalization of their sexual activity. . . . They must respect the right of millions in society to refuse to normalize their behavior.”

Perry’s politics are religious in a way not seen before in modern-day mainstream presidential candidates. “Either faith in Christ can cleanse all people of their sin, or none, but not some,” he writes. “The truth of Christ’s death, resurrection, and power over sin is absolute. . . . What we believe about it does not determine its truthfulness.”

Perry has no use for those who “want to recognize Jesus as a good teacher, but nothing more.” Of those non-Christians, Perry asks, “why call him good if he has lied about his claims of deity and misled two millennia of followers?”

The governor forecasts divine punishment for those who hold different political views. “Shall they stand before God and brag that they fought to scrub His glorious name from the nation’s pledge?” he asks. “Shall they seek His approval for attacking private organizations merely because these organizations proclaim His existence?”

As you can imagine, that kind of talk has the lefties wettin' their britches (as they say in Texas).  The idea that someone can be so sure of his positions really bothers them.  They prefer "nuance" and "compromise", but Perry's a straight shooter.

His campaign is going to be fun to watch, and the reactions of the left will be even more enjoyable.