The day before I left for the Republican National Convention, I advised the GOP to avoid gay issues in St. Paul. Once there, my impression was that they heeded my advice. (Maybe folks at the RNC read this blog. 🙂 ) Or merely that I had a similar notion to that of some sage political strategist advising the RNC.
Seems I’m not the only one who noticed this. In a column today in the Wall Street Journal, Jamie Kirchick writes that gay-bashing was “absent from last week’s Republican gabfest.” Kudos to Jamie for taking the time to do the research to confirm my observation that “that gays were not part of the agenda this year:”
Indeed, the only speaker to make mention of them was the former Arkansas governor and Baptist preacher Mike Huckabee, and he did so only tangentially, stating that Mr. McCain “doesn’t want to change the very definition of marriage from what it has always meant throughout recorded human history.” (The same, of course, could be said of the supposedly gay-friendly Barack Obama, who also opposes marriage equality for gay couples).
I’m delighted that at least four readers e-mailed me alerting me to this excellent article, with one commenting, “Looks like you got your wish…”
I did indeed. 🙂
Peg Kaplan linked the article on her own blog, saying, “About time.”
My friend Rick Sincere, linking the post on his own blog, attributes the Republican silence to a generational shift:
One would hope, given the polling data cited above and other public opinion surveys of recent years — as well as considerable anecdotal evidence — that as a younger generation of Republicans, who grew up with gay friends and who look toward Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan as the historical figures who best exemplify Republican principles, begin to gain control of the party’s resources and its future platforms, this live-and-let-live philosophy will reassert itself in the Grand Old Party.
Live and let live, exactly. That means Christians should be free to practice their faith and gay people should be free to define our own relationships free of state interference.
I have long believed that the Republican Party is better for gay people than the Democratic provided it stay true to its principles. The Democrats (and others on the left) would have us believe we need the state to promote social change. We believe that the state should just get out of the way so as not to prevent social change from happening organically.
I don’t see why we should be silent about the issue, the longer we stay silent about gay issues the more time the Dems have to hammer in the peg that we’re all gay bashing trigger happy homophobes(at least some of us straight republicans)
What Republican politicians should be doing is promoting gay issues that will bring more gay people over to our side without alienating too many social cons, like derailing DADT(I know from first hand experience in the IDF that it’s complete bullshit from contact with a few gay soldiers) and taking marriage out of government hands completely(for instance turning all marriage licenses into civil unions, gay or straight).
Obviously I’m just throwing shit into the air but I can’t believe that the best strategy we can use is “stfu and hope nobody asks any gay questions because we’re fucked if we do and we’re fucked if we don’t”
Well, my favorite gay issue of the convention was that big screaming queen from Texas in the big white cowboy hat interviewed on the Jon Stewart show. He just laughed on about the fact that gays already have what they need and if they want everything else they should get married. This guy could have flown away by himself.
And in your quote, I notice you conveniently leave out the fact that Obama does support civil unions, which gives gays and lesbians licenses issued by the states and afford the same rights and privileges afforded straight people who get marriage licenses…a bit of splitting hairs, but a good step in the right direction.
Interesting post Dan, and insightful reply numeral.
As to DADT, I think it will soon be history, soon being in the next 2-10 years. I don’t think an Obaministration can repeal it, but McCain could if he’s so inclined. He has the Gravitas and the military ‘street cred’ to do it.
If he’s not elected, it might be longer, we’d need a gulf war vet running for the big chair to get someone with the political weight to get it repealed.
Imagine President McCain standing with veterans say 15 or 20 of them, all ages, colours, and saying
“These men and women served their country with distinction. They stand out as examples of those who never broke their military oaths, who took the UMCJ as their law.
“They’ve also had to hide part of their lives from those who fought and died beside them. This ends today. We’ve made great steps since the days of tailhook, and I stood at the forefront of that investigation.
“I am issuing an executive order today, as CinC to have DADT overridden. I call upon both houses of congress to cross party divides and formally repeal this act.”
I was watching a bit of a news clip on 365gay.com that featured some woman blogger who was part of the Obama campaign, Patrick Sammon of Log Cabin and some guy from Washington Blade. The woman complained the exact opposite of this posting, that there wasn’t any mention of LGBT issues at the RNC.
My thoughts were that she really wanted to hear negative comments so she could say “Aha, McCain, Palin and the GOP are homophobes”
I definately think it’s a generational issues and was quite heartened to hear the poll of delegates listed on instapundit a week ago that stated that about half of the delegates were cool with at least civil unions. That’s a start.