Commentary: A political move of Biblical proportion

Just as news breaks that political fundraising is down for both parties, Republicans have lost one of their more generous contributors.

In what one might call a biblical move, Christian philanthropist Howard Ahmanson " one of three major funders of California's Proposition 8, which bans same-sex marriages " has abandoned the GOP for the Democratic Party.

No one ever said the multimillionaire isn't idiosyncratic.

In a rare interview Thursday, Ahmanson shared some of his thoughts about why he switched parties. In a word, taxes.

Specifically, he was offended by the California Republican Party's insistence during a recent state budget battle that there would be no tax increases for any reason, no matter what. "They're providing one issue and it's just a very silly issue," Ahmanson told me by telephone.

So, without fanfare, Ahmanson printed out an online form and mailed in his Democratic Party registration. Thus far, he's heard nothing back, but confesses to hoping he'll receive a little card or something.

Ahmanson, who was born to and inherited great wealth, has spent a lifetime trying to figure out what to do with his good fortune. It has been, at times, a burden of guilt, complicated by a lonely childhood. He also has Tourette's syndrome, which has contributed to his reclusiveness.

Ahmanson, 58, is one of the nation's leading evangelical Christians and one of conservatism's most reliable supporters, though he is hardly a Republican talking-point man. He thinks those who argue for school prayer, for instance, are confusing the moral with the religious. Morality is how we relate to one another, he says. Religion is how we relate to God "and it's not the government's business."

One can't mention Ahmanson without also discussing his association with Calvinist theologian R.J. Rushdoony, who believed in a literal application of biblical teachings and is credited with inspiring the Christian home-schooling movement.

Rushdoony's ideas once captured Ahmanson's imagination but he has mellowed. Ahmanson doesn't believe that homosexuals should be executed. He does believe that gays should "come to Christ and then recover."

Ahmanson's conversion to the Democratic Party, following decades of donating millions to conservative think tanks and causes, certainly qualifies as a "shocker" in political circles. "What!!!!!" has been the typical response.

It isn't possible to draw conclusions about the direction of the Republican Party based on Ahmanson's joining the "enemy camp." He did make some observations about the GOP, however, and sees the party's current problems as tension between "the upscales and the downscales" " the upper middle classes and the lower middle classes.

"If I were in the GOP, I'd advocate the party should be downscaling." Heading, that is, toward a populist position.

He liked Sarah Palin all right, but says "I'm now a blue dog Democrat for Bobby Jindal in 2012." And on Barack Obama, it's too early to tell, he says. "He may do well or he may not do well."

Ahmanson was disappointed by Obama's overturning of Bush administration restrictions on abortion and embryonic stem cell research. It is probably safe to say that when Democrats decided they needed to start talking more about faith and take God back from the GOP, they hadn't quite figured on landing Ahmanson. But Ahmanson is certain he'll find friends among Democrats who believe, as he does, that conservative ideas are not exclusively Republican.

On the other hand, he says that Democrats who have contacted him think he will be disappointed to find a lack of support for his views. Says Ahmanson: "We'll see how tolerant they really are."

- Parker is a columnist for The Washington Post Writers