One the one hand, Michigan Republican won’t resign after calling gays ‘filthy’ on Facebook. And on the other, Gay marriage could be ‘gateway’ issue the GOP needs.
It may take one more presidential defeat with support for the party from voters under 30 in freefall before the GOP will stand up and say “good riddance” to the Bauers and Huckabees.
12 Comments for “GOP’s Fork in the Road”
posted by Rodney Hoffman on
Can the GOP say “good riddance” to religious fundamentalists? In the 1990s, I said that if the party accepted the politics of the radical religious right, it would be the death of the party. Now we’ll soon (well, relatively soon) find out.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
It may take one more presidential defeat with support for the party from voters under 30 in freefall before the GOP will stand up and say “good riddance” to the Bauers and Huckabees.
I think you are right. The 2020 election cycle is when about half the Republican-base states will be at the 50-50 point or better in terms of voter support for marriage equality, so that’s probably when we’ll see a Republican Party neutralize on marriage equality at the national level.
Looking at the question as an outsider, my guess is that 2016 is too soon for the party to turn marriage equality into a “gateway”.
As Mike Huckabee (the Priebus-annointed “kinder, gentler” voice of the Republican Party on social issues) and other social conservative mouthpieces have made crystal clear, the hard-core social conservatives are going to fight tooth and nail to stop any move toward equality in the Republican Party as long as possible, and they are powerful.
Consequently, the rhetoric during Republican primary battles in the 2016 cycle will likely to become so divisive and distasteful that younger, independent voters will not likely come over in droves during that election cycle.
By 2020, on the other hand, a significant percentage of the aging, entrenched Republican voter base will have passed away and the Republican Party may be able to move to positions more closely aligned with pro-equality potential voters.
And it is always possible that if SCOTUS moves more quickly than I expect, the issue will be off the table by 2020. Who knows?
But a “gateway” by 2016? Not real likely, as you point out.
posted by Houndentenor on
Huckabee is only “kinder and gentler” because he can tell and can take a joke so he comes off well on liberal shows like The Daily Show. His positions are as extreme on social issues as anyone holding office in the party today.
I do think what we are about to see (and probably by 2014) are pro-gay Republicans in swing and liberal states. It’s not going to happen in Utah or Mississippi any time soon, but in places like Ohio, Pennsylvania where a Republican might have a shot at statewide office, we’re going to see politicians follow the Portman lead or lose badly. At the very least we’ll see challengers in the primaries that are more socially moderate.
posted by Jorge on
Huckabee is only “kinder and gentler” because he can tell and can take a joke so he comes off well on liberal shows like The Daily Show. His positions are as extreme on social issues as anyone holding office in the party today.
Not too far from my impression of him.
posted by Houndentenor on
If he’s not sorry that he said it, then he shouldn’t apologize. If it’s what he meant to say and how he meant to say it, then he should stand by it. I’m sick of non-apologetic apologies. “I’m sorry if you were hurt by what I said.” or “My statement was taken out of context.” That to me is more insulting than the original statement because it says to me that they did mean what they said and they think I’m stupid enough to be appeased by such transparent BS.
I can’t even say that I’m actually offended. In order to be offended I’d have to be surprised. Not that it doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t all treat him as the anti-gay bigot that he is from now on, but at least we know what we are dealing with. It’s a nice change of pace from crapola like “I’m for equal rights just not special rights.” or “I’m not anti-gay I just don’t think that gay people should be allowed to get married or be protected under anti-discrimination laws or serve in the military and of course that sodomy laws should still be on the books. But I’m not anti-gay! How dare you say that!!!” Yeah, this at least is honest which is a nice change of pace from the bigots who like to kid themselves that they aren’t.
posted by Lori Heine on
I want to leave these people nowhere to hide. We need to be able to see the whites of their eyes.
My home state, Arizona, used to elect nutbags like that on a regular basis. There are still some who get through (see “Sheriff Joe”), but it doesn’t happen nearly as often as it used to because we were shamed by the ridicule we got from the rest of America.
The media needs to stop giving bigoted jerks an easy exit by letting them “apologize” and then forgetting about what they said or did. If this douche thinks he’s gotten away with it, he’ll keep on doing it. Eventually, the people who vote for him will be embarrassed enough to take out the garbage.
posted by Houndentenor on
And at the same time, I’m happy to accept an apologize from someone who really does understand that they did or said something they shouldn’t have. Such apologies are so rare in our time that it’s hard to think of a single example.
posted by Doug on
Even as a few Republicans get on board and support marriage equality there will always be a substantial percentage of the GOP that is anti-gay and should the party move toward the middle on this issue they will leave the GOP and either not vote or vote for 3rd party candidates. Either way that means the GOP will be unable to elect Senators or win the presidency.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The Republicans are between a rock and a hard place, as you point out.
If the party doesn’t change its positions, it will lose pro-equality voters; if the party does change its positions, it will lose anti-equality voters. The issue cannot be fudged by “messaging”.
The party has no choice but to change in the long run unless it intends to become a regional, marginalized party. Pro-equality voters are a growing block, even within the Republican Party and among evangelical Christians; anti-equality voters are dying off (“literally”, as George Will put it).
Don’t anyone feel sorry for the Republican Party, though. The bed in which they find themselves lying, as uncomfortable as it may be, is a bed of their own making.
As Rodney Hoffman’s comment suggests, the party made a calculated decision — a Faustian bargain, if you will — to invite the “radical religious right” into the party, and to allow social conservatives to redefine conservatism to exclude individual rights, in exchange for short-term political gain.
The party did so knowingly and willingly, even as authentic conservatives like Barry Goldwater (and Rodney Hoffman, presumably) warned them not to enter into the bargain and warned them about the consequences. The bargain was cynical and calculated, and, as is always the case with Faustian bargains, a price is extracted.
So now the Republican Party is going to have to pay that price. Feel sorry for them if you will — I do not and will not — but keep in mind that the cost of the bargain to all of us was very high: The Republican Party was the driving force behind 30-odd anti-marriage amendments that will take another decade, at least, to repeal; the Republican Party has entrenched a cadre of hard-core social conservatives in “safe” districts who will be difficult to remove from Congress; the Republican Party appointed “originalist” Justices and judges like Scalia into our judicial system, men and women who will throw a monkey wrench into “equal means equal” for many years to come; and, last but by no means least, the Republican Party unleashed and/or gave political cover to outright bigots who described us as filthy, disease-ridden, sexually irresponsible child predators, who compared our relationships to sex with dogs and worse, and who described our aspirations to equal treatment under the law as a threat to our country and the foundation of civilization itself. Along the way, the Republican Party allowed social conservatives to drive out the moderates it now so desperately needs to rebuild itself as center-right, and mocked them as “RINO’s”.
I can forgive the amendments, the entrenched elected officials and the distortion of our judicial system. I won’t forget, but I can forgive. It was “just politics”.
I cannot forgive the Republican Party for unleashing and giving credence to the voices of bigotry, coldly disregarding the cost of the bigotry to young gays and lesbians who came out of childhood during the last decade. That wasn’t “just politics”.
I am past retirement age now, and will be out of the political game soon enough, after 40+ years in the trenches. But I have spent too many hours of my life, dealing with the aftermath of that destructive, cold and calculated decision by the Republican Party unleash the forces of bigotry to forgive them on that score.
The Republican Party’s anti-equality positioning might be excused as “just politics”, but the Republican Party’s decision to put its imprimatur on the likes of Michele Bachmann and Tony Perkins cannot be so excused.
The Republican Party entered into the Faustian bargain, and is, at long last, going to have to pay a price for it. The price is not sufficient to repay what they did to young gays and lesbians, no matter how high the price.
posted by Doug on
Like you, Tom, I am now retired and have been in the trenches for years and your comments are spot on. This is the primary reason I did not rush to heap praise on Portman for coming around to marriage equality, all the damage perpetrated on the LGBT community in the past by the likes of the GOP and Portman.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I didn’t exactly break out the palm leaves for Senator Portman, myself, but I’ve seen a number of parents make the difficult journey he’s been on, and I feel empathy for him, as my comments probably indicated.
So many don’t make it at all. Congressman Matt Salmon of Arizona is stuck, estranged from his son despite the words. If you read down to the last few paragraphs in the story, and click on the link to Phoenix New Times story (link is “back in 2010”) and read that (it is long), the whole, sad story typical of religiously conservatives families unfolds — family rejection, ex-gay therapy, the whole nine yards. Salmon has made some progress, apparently (he no longer believes that being gay or lesbian is a “choice”), but if he still struggles, it doesn’t come through from his comments or the related article. His son’s partner, Kent Flake, is Senator Jeff Flake’s cousin, so there is probably another story to be told from that family.
I’ve seen a quite a few parents go through the process, as you probably have, too. Too many don’t make it, and too many gay and lesbian kids end up estranged, outsiders in their own families. When people like Portman make it to the destination, in public life or not, I’m with them.
The abuse heaped on Senator Portman by the anti-marriage crowd has been incredible.
In responses to Senator Portman’s statements, we and our relationships have been described or likened to: “cockroaches” (Liberty Counsel Chairman Mat Staver); cocaine use (Robert Knight of the American Civil Rights Union); polygamy and polyandry (Laurie Higgins, Illinois Family Institute); drug addiction, pornographers, adulterers (Peter LaBarbara of AFTAH); pedophilia, murder, drug-dealing and slavery (Gary DeMar of American Vision); polygamy and serial killing (WorldNetDaily editor Joseph Farah); vicious, rebellious children (Linda Harvey, President of Mission America); drunk driving (Traditional Values Coalition President Andrea Lafferty), and — oh hell, it just goes on and on.
The politicians are piling on, too. The GOP Georgia Chair opined that if marriage equality becomes the law, straight men will marry straight men to scam the government. Congressman Tim Huelskamp wrote a Washington Times OpEd in which he banged the “redefining marriage to remove parents of both sexes from the equation would further the destruction of the family, the most fundamental building block of society” drum. And even Bill Kristol jumped in, dismissing support for marriage equality among young Republicans with this: “This kind of pathetic attempt: ‘Oh my god, young people especially are liberal so let’s just rush to cater to them.’ As if they’re going to respect you if you just embrace the views of some 26-year-old who doesn’t know anything honestly. Can’t adults say young people are sometimes wrong?”
If that sort of thing is going to be the social conservative response to the Republican Party’s attempts to “disagree without being disagreeable” (the latest formulation of the “messaging” makeover), the party is in for a rough ride.
posted by Lori Heine on
As our electoral system is set up for two competing parties, if Doug’s prediction comes true, it would possibly boost the Libertarian Party into the slot now occupied by the GOP.
Don’t laugh. The Republican Party was once a third party, and they supplanted the Whigs to take on the Democrats. As young people poll heavily libertarian, it may be a sign of what’s to come.
I’m not sure that social conservatives are all infantile enough, however, to take their toys and leave just because they can’t get their own way on gay issues. I know a few of them (admittedly, not a lot), and those people seem to be coming around to the realization that the anti-gay forces are losing. Those I know who consider themselves social cons, surprisingly, don’t mind that. They’re either coming around to accepting gays, or they never felt that strongly about the supposedly apocalyptic threat we were said to pose.