From New York Magazine:
When the Conservative Political Action Conference launches on February 10, the mood will be uncharacteristically flamboyant. Not only because the gay caucus GOProud will be prominently participating, but because the anti-gay National Organization for Marriage, the Family Research Council, and other “values” organizations won’t be. Together, they’ve mounted a CPAC boycott, an effort to strip the newish homosexual element from the conservative coalition and part of a larger bid to forcibly remarry social and fiscal conservatives. The bet was that distaste for gay people themselves—as opposed to lightning rods like gay marriage or adoption, which aren’t included in GOProud’s platform—is still a strong right-wing motivator. It’s a bet they seem to have lost
Maybe it's just us but we see no contradiction nor conflict of interest in being supporters of traditional marriage while realizing that maybe, just maybe, there are quite a few gays out there that are concerned with matters beyond, you know, gay stuff.
The GOP and the conservative movement as a whole would do well to keep the doors open to those concerned with individual liberty and free markets and a hyper-active federal government that has been increasingly infringing upon the two former subjects regardless of race, sex, creed or sexual orientation.
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13 comments:
I would have no problem with being a supporter of traditional marriage and there being a homosexual group at CPAC...except for their opening move was to say hey, let's dump all the values stuff!
Shockingly, I actually know conservative homosexuals who are pretty socially conservative. Le shock! I know! They're all supposed to be the same, even in rebellion against the libs! And yet, there it is-- folks who happen to be attracted to the same sex that don't want that to be their primary identification, nor want to define their political life around it, are already in the Republican party.
Making more Scott Eckerns is not the way to grow a big tent, any more than tossing the "controversial" (:cough: don't chop up babies :cough:) social issues was the last half-dozen times they tried it.
On a practical level, this is F'in moronic:
Hey! Let's alienate a huge chunk of our traditional base to court the tiny fraction of our population that self-identifies primarily by sexual attraction to the same sex! Never mind that on a tactical level, the SoCons are more likely to oppose a government safety net because they are more likely to have family to help, while homosexuals are less likely, and never mind that 'homosexual issues' always seem to manage to run over the top of individual rights-- ONWARD TO VICTORY!!!
Right or wrong, the "values stuff" has been defined as anti-gay. For the most part I would agree.
Some of the gay self-identification comes from being outcast by the same ID. Still being human, the pycological defense mechanisms of over compensating will come out.
The leap of logic whereby Eckerns is established in your comments in the same breath as CPAC and Gays speaks volumes on the prejudice these people face.
Seeing a pattern in a guy being forced from his job, and a group trying to force out a major section of the base of the GOP that shares the same view on an issue with that same group is "prejudice"?
Bull feces.
Good riddance to DeMint.
He used to be the conservative standard bearer in the Senate. Now he's just a bigot and we have real conservatives in the Senate like Rand Paul. Paul is going to CPAC.
Incidentally?
Thirty seconds on the GOProud site shows that they do support homosexual marriage (counter to your link) in practice if not explicitly in name (changing social security so homosexual partners can inherit it), "domestic partner benefits," and no bet on if homosexual marriage is going to be a big chunk of the basic human rights fight against global extremists. (Somehow, it's always the less dangerous enemy at home that's a focus, instead of the guys hanging folks with cranes.)
Oh, and they're opposed to any "anti-gay federal marriage amendment."
Ya go to a biased source, you get biased information.
But hey, don't mind me; just keep up with the name calling.
Heaven forbid that reasoned argument, rational strategy, any of the other supposed reasons for a big tent come into play. Just borrow the left's usual strategy of name-calling instead of deal with an argument.
My gut feeling is that Paul is more libertarian than conservative. I expect his foreign policy views to be more like his father's than a conservative position.
Steve
I swear, I'm going to rename this site "Gays with Demo" or something similar... or maybe just do nothing but gay-related posts such is the response (on a Super Bowl Sunday, no less) whenever I go anywhere near this hot button issue.
At this time, I think it's much more important to find common ground with like-minded folks than to part ways over issues that, frankly, in my mind are in the margins right now.
It's hard to find common ground with someone who tries to shove you out the door as soon as they walk in.
I don't know what the guys' excuses are, but we 1) don't have cable, 2) weren't invited to a party, 3) could hardly care less about the Super Bowl. I think I was 12 the last time I actually had fun at a SB party.
Sure seems to me you get a lot of posts ANY time you get into the libertarian vs conservative thing, Dean. Homosexuality is just the latest angle.
That's basically all this is, again, for... probably decades, now.
Did someone have a bad experience that defines their relationship and outlook with the gays?
Dean, one of my longest set of comments came from a gay marriage post. I don't get it either. Personally, I wish government could get out of the marriage business, then I could feel free to not recognize gay unions and marriages and gays would not feel discriminated against.
I know it's not popular with the libertarian crowd, but there is a good reason for the gov't to be involved in promoting stable heterosexual marriage-- that's how you get new, stable citizens.
If you want to look at it like a sociologist, that's why religion is involved in marriage, too.
That's why it's such a big deal between the libertarian idealists and the conservative functionalists.
Religion is involved as a legacy. When the church and state were one and the same, through most of history, it made sense to blend the religious and legal aspects of marriage. It is not necessary anymore. Separate out the legal aspects to the state. Let religions have their own ceremonies which will designate marriage as a religious event.
Steve
...They can already do that, Steve. There's no law against a religion-only marriage.
Most of the lesbians I know have been "married" religiously. (And no, it didn't make the relationship last any longer than their previous ones.)
It's also entirely possible to be married through only the state-- a civil marriage.
They were just polite enough to make it so you can have the religious person who performs a religious wedding and has done the qualifying paperwork sign that civil document.
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