North and South in the Republican Party

Atlantic columnist Megan McArdle sees tension growing between Northerners and Southerners that threatens Republican unity. She begins by quoting from a reader who commented:

... few things get [Northerners] angrier than how the Republican party has been taken over by "the Texans." This is shorthand for the southern-oriented, Protestant-oriented religious right.

McCardle agrees, and offers this observation:

I wonder if the tea parties won't help bring the two wings of the Republican party together: guns and lower government spending are the two things all members can agree on. But if the south wants to keep its northern Republicans--and the congressional seats that come with them--it's going to have to back off trying to make the northern party look like a miniature version of itself.

Not least because northern Republicans share one more feature with their southern brethren--they hate people from some distant city telling them what to do. If you find that hard to understand, just picture how y'all feel when the ACLU starts its annual Nativity Scene Hunt through the town squares of Alabama and Mississippi.

Of course, the ACLU and SPLC are already cruising Southern communities, Ahab-like, scanning town halls, school yards, and courthouse lawns for crosses, creches, and Ten Commandment displays.

So what's more important to us -- propping up the Republican party apparatus, or preserving the cultural and religious values that define the South? Are we willing to accept same-sex "marriage" and floodtide immigration in exchange for the promise (and you know it's JUST a promise!) of lower taxes?

We Southerners have a choice to make, don't we?

More at memeorandum.