Maddow: Republicans still trying to intrude into your bedroom

Friday night on "The Rachel Maddow Show," host Rachel Maddow pointed out that in spite of whatever attempts the GOP is making at the national level at rebranding itself, the party is lost without its "bedroom intrusion agenda."

Even as national Republicans like Olympia Snowe come out in favor of marriage equality, state Republicans are passing ever more stringent laws against abortion, contraception access and other reproductive freedoms.

North Carolina Republicans, even though they are dropping their bid to establish Christianity as the state's official religion, are trying to make it more difficult for married couples to divorce.

"Even if the reason you want to get divorced is, say, domestic violence, your spouse abusing you," Maddow said, "The republicans in the state legislature of North Carolina want the state government to intervene in your marriage to block you from getting divorced. For two years. During which time they will mandate you attend state government classes and workshops that are designed to make you not get divorced from your abusive spouse for two years. Because, you know, 'small government.'"

State Republicans in Texas, Virginia, Alabama and North Dakota are shutting down clinics that perform abortions. Arkansas Republicans have introduced legislation saying that the state can discriminate on the basis of gender. Several states are banning comprehensive sex education.

"This is what the republican party is working on around the country right now," Maddow said. The Beltway press does not cover Republican politics that way, but that is what they're doing. It's not what they're talking about. It's what they're doing."

"The Beltway line on the Republican Party right now is social conservatism is over for the Republican Party. And kicking all the old school conservative issues to the sideline," she concluded. "But look at what they're doing, not what they're saying. Dozens of Republicans and Republican Senators have signed on to more investigations of Planned Parenthood. Virginia is looking for sodomy laws. They are cracking down on 'the gay' in every form of state government. The social conservatives have triumphed in the Republican Party. You could tell it not from what they say to the Beltway press. It's how they use the power they have in governing all over the country. You cannot distill this stuff out of the Republican Party. This is the Republican Party. If you kicked them out of your bedroom, they would have no idea where else to go."

Watch the video, which aired Friday, April 5, and is embedded via MSNBC, below:

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