Karen Tumulty and Dan Balz of the Washington Post report:
Another new, unpredictable element is the increasing influence of the libertarian movement, say many senior Republicans. It has infused the party with energy and has genuine appeal for many young people but has also interjected into the dialogue propositions that many traditional Republican activists reject, such as drug legalization.
“There is a loud libertarian faction,” agreed South Carolina [GOP] strategist Katon Dawson. “Libertarianism has moved into the Republican Party and is trying to hijack it.”
But David Boaz, executive vice president of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, insisted that social issues aside, there is far more common ground than conflict in the GOP.
“I think the Republican Party is more uniformly anti-big-government than it was before, and that is not the same thing as conservative,” Boaz said. “It is more anti-tax, anti-spending, anti-Washington, which in a sense is where conservatism and libertarian views overlap.”
One source of confusion is that many in the GOP (including some, not all, in the tea party movement) who call themselves “libertarians” remain social conservatives. Whether genuine libertarians can convince them you can’t favor liberty from government on economic matters and then champion government to restrict liberty by blocking the right to marry or enforcing drug prohibition is another matter.
Jonathan Rauch touches on some similar themes at the liberal Daily Beast site, writing:
Evangelicals are, and will remain, a large and critical element of the Republican base. Three-quarters of them supported Romney in 2012. No wonder the GOP is having so much trouble with gay marriage: opposing it alienates younger voters, but supporting it angers evangelicals. Until that equation tips, individual Republicans may break ranks on gay rights, but the party remains a countercultural [anti-gay rights] bastion.
I disagree, however, on the “shrewdness” of the Human Rights Campaign’s initiative to foster dialogue in the South aimed at “changing hearts and minds in Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi, three of the country’s reddest states,” given HRC’s primary role fundraising for progressive Democrats and its opposition to electing openly gay conservative Republicans (such as Carl DeMaio). You can’t have it both ways (i.e., “we’re from the leftwing of the Democratic party, and we’d like to talk to you about gay equality”).
I’d also argue that, although some of the state initiatives on religious exemptions were poorly worded and supported by anti-gay evangelicals, allowing faith-based exemptions so that small business owners aren’t forced to perform artistic services celebrating same-sex weddings is the pro-liberty position.
20 Comments for “The GOP’s Cultural Contradictions”
posted by Mark on
I don’t see a contradiction in a gay rights organization promoting gay rights at the grassroots level while also opposing a gay candidate who’s worse on gay rights than his opponent, as is the case with DeMaio. But Stephen’s identity politics would be more consistent if he had endorsed Tammy Baldwin in 2012, which I don’t remember him doing.
Does Stephen’s proposed exemption (public accommodation laws shouldn’t protect gays and lesbians if the business is a small business performing artistic services) mean that he now supports anti-discrimination laws as applied to sexual orientation?
posted by R.V. on
I think Stephen’s point is that you can’t hold a policy that you are so liberal-left identified you oppose even openly gay Republicans because Democrats are always better, and then go into the deep South and say let’s all have a dialogue about gay equality. Isn’t going to work. HRC will have its dialogue only with fellow progressives, which can be spun for effective fundraising but will not accomplish much.
Stephen is suspicious of anti-discrimination laws (like Walter Olson and others at the libertarian Cato Institute), but has said if we’re going to have them there should at least be exemptions for small service providers regarding same-sex weddings.
posted by Lori Heine on
As a Christian, myself, I do not have a problem with the concept of a general freedom-of-conscience exemption. But as other commenters have pointed out here, I have a caveat:
These exemptions must be accessible to anyone who objects, on the basis of conscience, to serving anyone else. Do lawmakers have the gumption to be consistent about this?
I believe that many on the religious right worship a false image of Christ. Basically, I believe they worship the Antichrist. Am I permitted, as a small businessperson, to decline service to them?
The so-called Bible Belt is actually a bastion of moral filth. These people have defined morality so narrowly that they can do anything–cheat on their spouses, rape their kids, you name it–and get away with it, as long as they are heterosexual. Make no mistake about it, “homosexuality” is very convenient to everybody who crawls out of the sewer and seeks to get away with whatever they want. That’s why these people are hanging on, with such dogged determination, to their “moral stand” against it.
And what of people whose beliefs tell them they shouldn’t serve people who have remarried after divorce, or who work for employers they believe to be cheating the public, or work in the “defense” industry? What of those who — however benighted they may be — still retain “Bible-based” objections to serving mixed-race couples?
To try to quibble about these matters is nothing more than abject political cowardice and intellectual dishonesty. These questions need to be answered.
If, for some reason, we must draw the line on “homosexuality,” then why? As I have again just noted, that issue alone cannot rationally be singled out where religious belief is concerned.
posted by Mark on
The HRC program, at least as described, clearly is going to be more than with “fellow progressives.” Maybe it will fail. But if it does fail, I doubt it will be because of who HRC did or did not endorse in a San Diego congressional race. In any case, I think HRC’s job is to endorse the candidate who’s best on gay rights, which in the California race seems to be Peters, as opposed to a Republican nominee who basically stood on the sidelines in the Prop 8 fight and says in 2014 he wants to leave social issues out of politics, which suggests he’d be anything but a leader on gay rights.
I know Stephen is suspicious of anti-discrimination laws as applied to sexual orientation (but not as applied to race, it seems), and seems to have post after post complaining about their application, going well beyond “artistic” service providers to occasionally use very intemperate rhetoric. But he never seems to say if he wants anti-discrimination laws repealed. Maybe they should be. But at least he should be honest about his “suspicions” rather than leave the issue unaddressed.
posted by Walker on
How is the pro-marriage (and pro-choice) DeMaio worse on gay rights than his opponent? Even if he were, everything we’ve learned about coming out and progress demonstrates that it would be good to have a gay person in the Republican caucus. But what evidence is there that DeMaio doesn’t support gay rights?
posted by Houndentenor on
they have this thing called google now. You should check it out.
DeMaio is not someone I would support if he were straight. Why should I support him only because he’s gay? Equal means equal, right? he’s not really that good on gay rights.
Meanwhile Obama finally announced he’s going to sign the executive order (finally) prohibiting anti-gay discrimination by federal contractors with more than 50 employees. I can hardly wait to hear from the butthurt homophobes at Exxon/Mobil.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I disagree, however, on the “shrewdness” of the Human Rights Campaign’s initiative to foster dialogue in the South aimed at “changing hearts and minds in Alabama, Arkansas, and Mississippi, three of the country’s reddest states,” given HRC’s primary role fundraising for progressive Democrats and its opposition to electing openly gay conservative Republicans (such as Carl DeMaio). You can’t have it both ways (i.e., “we’re from the leftwing of the Democratic party, and we’d like to talk to you about gay equality”).
I remember the time, not too many years ago, Stephen, when you criticized progressive gays and lesbians for not entering into dialog with social conservatives. Now it appears that you are arguing that progressives should not engage social conservatives.
I don’t see it that way at all. Progressive gays and lesbians engaged, initially, straights of a left/liberal bent. Then progressive gays and lesbians engaged straights of a moderate/independent bent. Both have been won over to the side of equality (about 70% of Democrats and 60% of independents support marriage equality). It seems to me that it is time to start working on social conservatives (somewhere in the range of 20-25% support) and start bringing them around.
Somebody has got to engage them, and that’s a fact. I don’t see much effort among conservative gays and lesbians to do that (and Carl DeMaio is a good example of someone who isn’t doing squat in that respect), and I don’t see any reason why progressive gays and lesbians shouldn’t give it a shot.
I don’t belong to HRC and don’t think much of the organization, as you know, but I hope that the HRC “Southern Strategy” (funded primarily by Tim Gill and affiliated donors, who are not fools) makes some inroads. Whether or not the effort is successful, and as controversial as it may be on both sides of the liberal/conservative divide, it beats a blank.
posted by Houndentenor on
This is the thing I find most complexing about the gay conservatives. If we bring up making coalitions with pro-gay conservatives and moderates they complain that such folks are RINOs and not true conservatives. #facepalm
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I’d also argue that, although some of the state initiatives on religious exemptions were poorly worded and supported by anti-gay evangelicals, allowing faith-based exemptions so that small business owners aren’t forced to perform artistic services celebrating same-sex weddings is the pro-liberty position.
This is best handled with a “threshold” exemption as we handle exemptions to other areas of non-discrimination law. A “threshold” exemption isn’t perfect, but it is a lot better than wading into the political quagmire of trying to define a “religious” exemption that is applicable to small businesses and is religion-neutral, issue-neutral and class-neutral.
posted by Jorge on
I don’t see a contradiction in a gay rights organization promoting gay rights at the grassroots level while also opposing a gay candidate who’s worse on gay rights than his opponent, as is the case with DeMaio.
…
I think Stephen’s point is that you can’t hold a policy that you are so liberal-left identified you oppose even openly gay Republicans because Democrats are always better, and then go into the deep South and say let’s all have a dialogue about gay equality.
Okay, I can see this one will end in a stalemate.
Somebody has got to engage them, and that’s a fact.
Look, the gay rights movement can’t be just about winning elections and waiting for a lucky roll in which the right candidate is able to propose and pass the right policy. That is making the perfect the enemy of the good. It feeds into much of what is corrupt about politics. Certain things need to be done in the present.
Let people do what they can. The world will be a better place for it.
posted by Mark on
In 2011-2012, a coalition of groups (funded in part by HRC, and also Freedom to Marry, &.) did this kind of work in rural Minnesota and Maine in preparation for their states’ marriage referendums. They seemed to use lots of focus group-tested rhetoric, couched to address concerns about marriage held by conservatives and church-goers. I don’t remember anything, based on press coverage, about HRC’s endorsement policy in the CA 52nd district affecting the quality of this work.
I realize that for Stephen everything revolves around the Demaio campaign, but given the success of the Maine and Minnesota efforts, it would seem to place at least some burden on Stephen to explain why HRC’s endorsement policies ensures that the Southern grassroots efforts are doomed to fail when these earlier efforts didn’t.
posted by Doug on
Why is the sin of homosexuality, according to evangelicals, so much worse than every other sin in the Bible that it deserves a special carve out from the civil rights laws and not one other sin deserves such?
When that question is answered then I will be willing to discuss such a carve out but not before. Until then the evangelical right is just going to have to suck it up or close up shop IMHO.
posted by Jorge on
Why is the sin of homosexuality, according to evangelicals, so much worse than every other sin in the Bible that it deserves a special carve out from the civil rights laws and not one other sin deserves such?
I don’t think evangelicals existed when we stopped discriminating against single mothers.
Cue Tom Scharbach’s history lesson about how evangelicals opposed integration or some other torrid scandal.
posted by Houndentenor on
I was raised Southern Baptist. Evangelicals have existed for a very long time in this country. They may have used different labels but that line of thinking is not in any way new in the last few decades. The only real chance is the political alliances that made that coalition an important political force.
posted by Jorge on
By the way, Doug, since you mentioned evangelicals, there is something I wanted to share.
The famous Houston pastor Joel Olsteen did an event at Yankee Stadium a couple of weeks ago, and my local paper did a story about his positive and nonsectarian message. Now Joel and Victoria Olsteen asked attendees to consider sponsoring a child through this organization they support called World Vision, as part of Christian charity.
And so I finally got around to it, and that’s when I remembered World Vision was the organization that tried to put in a nondiscrimination policy and got hit with the boycott threat by its religious nutty supporters so they folded. Would have killed them, too. Charity Navigator shows they give and spend a lot, but hold onto very little. That’s why I wanted my parents not to grab one of the cards saying “this is the child you’ll sponsor” yet. Because yes I was interested but I wanted to do my research first. They’re not going to follow through, and if I found something bad about them, it puts me in a situation where I committed [they cover for that, but still it’s the principle of the thing].
I mention this here because right now I do not have the heart to send my letter to the editor.
posted by Houndentenor on
The GOP is not a libertarian party. It never was and is unlikely ever to be. There are some elements of that in the party but there are far more big-government types. (and a great deal of inconsistency even among those who want cuts in all the programs except for the ones they like but still think of themselves as not being for big government.)
posted by Don on
The right is a victim of its own success. Just as the left was in the 1970s. Having accomplished so many of its goals, they continue to lose supporters as they cut more programs and enforce their particular brand of social order.
So many of my purist libertarian friends say “we’ve only just begun” to make cuts and shrink government. But the appetite the general public has for the continued push is waning. One strong Tea Party friend believes “no child should go hungry” but many would call him a RINO.
And while I am sympathetic to the plight of religious conservatives who do not wish to serve gay weddings, this site has exhausted the points and Stephen has decided to ignore the reality that this is a special carve-out for unjustifiable discrimination that is a “special right” if ever there was one.
I think we should call that what it really is: a legal right to shame gay people into “changing” into heteros. That is what they really want. They are not afraid of violating their religious beliefs. They are desperately hanging on to any shred of power to shame their future children into a life of heterosexuality/complete abstinence. All because there will be a lake of fire waiting for them if they don’t.
See, generally, Texas GOP assertion that they need to keep reparative therapy.
posted by Jorge on
The GOP is not a libertarian party. It never was and is unlikely ever to be. There are some elements of that in the party but there are far more big-government types. (and a great deal of inconsistency even among those…
Hear, hear! I wish the Republican party were more like that.
And while I am sympathetic to the plight of religious conservatives who do not wish to serve gay weddings, this site has exhausted the points and Stephen has decided to ignore the reality that this is a special carve-out for unjustifiable discrimination that is a “special right” if ever there was one…
Hmm…
“Unjustifiable discrimination”? Methinks the law that makes it illegal discrimination in the first place is what cannot be justified in the face of this controversy. A plight happened to religious conservatives that does not compare to what happened to gay couples.
Unjustifiable? I’ll give you two justifications: for greater good between two individuals, and for the common good of the community as a whole. If the gay couple loses, they go to another store and live in a state of shame and self-loathing that is outside their control. If the florist loses, s/he either lives with in a state of self-imposed mortal sin based on his or her religious convictions , or s/he goes out of business. The florist would suffer the greater harm for losing.
Does the greater good justify the florist suffering the greater harm? Only the invidious history of anti-gay discrimination could cause the gay couple to prevail–shame and self-loathing are predominant and repeated on a grand scale that requires broad intervention to erase.
However that gets countered enough by the First Amendment and religious discrimination concerns at play that we still need to side with the florist.
Oh, and I also think judging the rightness of the two causes based on the goodwill and decency of each side’s foot soldiers leads to the wrong conclusion in this case.
posted by Doug on
I’m sorry but your comments are just total BS. Constitutional rights are not judged on the ‘greater good’ of an infringed party. That’s an argument Bush used to commit torture and it does not fly.
posted by Lori Heine on
By whining and crabbing about it when their competitors expressed their intention of advertising that THEY welcome everybody, the “defenders of religious liberty” in Mississippi showed their own true colors.
Likewise, by using the power of the state to penalize churches that perform same-sex unions, did the North Carolina “libertarians.”
I’m not impressed by what people call themselves. I look at what they do. And at the way that impacts others.
It is moronic to argue about whether people in the Tea Party, who call themselves “libertarians” while crusading to curtail other people’s liberty, are “real” libertarians. Libertarians do not attack the liberty of others, but seek to establish a common ground for the freedom of all.
Religious discrimination concerns are indeed “at play” in this phoney-baloney debate, Jorge. I prefer to call it what it is: bullcrap on stilts.