The Lack of Social Conservatives in the Virginia Blogosphere

Virginia Centrist speculates on the socially libertarian but politically conservative side of the blogosphere.

Why are Virginia's conservative bloggers more socially libertarian than the rest of the state? I'm not trying to claim that they support gay marriage or abortion rights. I'm just saying that for most VA Conservative bloggers, social issues are not at the forefront of their focus. They usually say "live and let die." Shaun Kenney, Jim Bacon, Will Vehrs, Chad Dotson, Norm Leahy, etc - their main focus is on issues of taxation and spending, not hot button social issues.

This of course differs from most of our Republican elected officials.

I chose to ignore the last sentence in his post.

Anyway, it is a rather interesting question, and I offered my thoughts.

I have found that socially conservative people generally vary widely in how they work. I am sure you are aware that I am a social conservative, as well as an economic conservative and a strong supporter of our military. A number of other social conservatives are as well, but many that I know can be a bit more liberal in their economic views, as well as more pacifistic and more concerned with the environment. Yet, many of those social conservatives stay out of politics, feeling either that it is too divisive or it does not include them (I have told them many times that I do not feel that a third party can be successful, at least not in this decade). For that matter, many of those social conservatives spend most of their time in the leadership of religious groups. This is just speculation, but perhaps this may be common among many other social conservatives.

In the end, I am still left wondering the same thing as VC.

And let me extend a suggestion to readers here who do not visit VC's blog; check it out. Though I still do not take "moderate" and "centrist" as an acceptable answer as one's political beliefs (in fact, I had aimed this post directly at VC a few months ago), VC has a well-thought out blog with some great posts. It has improved dramatically since the summer, and is among the blogs I read daily on my RSS feed (one that may be getting too big, with both Charlottesville blogs and the Old Dominion Blog Alliance making up the vast majority of the blogs included).