Tips for Republicans Who Want to Win

The Daily Caller looks at How Republicans Can Win Millennial Voters:

And that thing people keep saying about how Republicans can’t win young people if they’re anti-gay? It’s worse than you think. …
So yeah, social issues have to go, but that’s not all. You’ve got to do more than keep talking about how capitalism will save the young if they just give it time. This generation wants to see results. Literally. When it comes to government spending, they don’t care how they get jobs, so long as something works. … And if you want to sell them on limited government, here’s a tip: Offer concrete proposals for limiting it.

Also, from The Hill: Lobbyists Quietly Advise GOP on Gay Marriage shift:

“I have had meetings with some of the most rock-ribbed social conservatives in Washington,” said Gregory Angelo, the executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans. “A lot of them see the writing on the wall, they see the direction the country is headed.”

A Pew Research Center poll released earlier this year showed that more than 60 percent of Republicans under the age of 30 support gay marriage; 43 percent of those aged 30–49 were in favor.

Many Republicans will never evolve. But the party will, and probably sooner than many think. The lack of high-level response from party leaders to Obama’s executive order on anti-discrimination, or to recent appellate rulings on marriage equality, is one indication.

On a separate tangent (because it’s not enough for its own post), the idea that gays should rally to the defense of the Export-Import Bank (taxpayer dollars indirectly subsidizing selected private companies, referred to by some as crony capitalism or corporate welfare) because Obama appointed a gay man to run it and its critics include tea party activists, is beyond ludicrous.

44 Comments for “Tips for Republicans Who Want to Win”

  1. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Many Republicans will never evolve. But the party will, and probably sooner than many think.

    Sooner rather than later would be my hope. But I was not born yesterday, and I know from personal experience that turning a political party around on gay and lesbian issues is not a trivial task, even when, as was the case in the Democratic Party, the party does not have a long term history of stated antipathy to equality and a strongly anti-equality primary voter base.

    I suspect that two factors are going to have a strong influence on when and how the party moves off the dime on equality:

    (1) The party is under tremendous pressure from its anti-equality base to continue to resist equality. The party cannot win the 2016 presidential election unless the social conservative base turns out to vote, and the party cannot realistically hope to motivate the base to turn out without giving it something on anti-equality. It will not be sufficient, as many Wisconsin’s Republican governor, Scott Walker, is trying out, to simply shrug and say “I’m not a lawyer …”, essentially going silent.

    The current Republican effort to mollify the base is centered around the so-called “religious freedom” exemptions to public accommodations laws.

    The mendacity underlying the party’s supposed concern for “religious freedom” is exemplified by the proposed Oregon law, which waxes on about the value of religious freedom in Section 2, but then narrows down in Section 3 to focused legitimization of discrimination against gays and lesbians and gays and lesbians alone. The animus and intent of the law is do transparent as to be laughable.

    So-called “religious freedom” laws will pass, no doubt, in a few hard-core anti-equality states (Mississippi recently enacted such a law, for example) but will not fly outside that small arena. Americans can smell mendacity and place high value on fair treatment, dooming the so-called “religious freedom” laws anywhere outside the rabid anti-gay states. “Religious freedom” is a sop that has come and gone for all practical purposes.

    So what will the party come up with next as a way to hold the social conservative base? I don’t know, but it is going to have to be something or the social conservative base will not turn out in the numbers needed to elect a Republican president in 2016.

    How the party elects to try to mollify the social conservative base is going to strongly influence how quickly the party turns, and in what direction

    (2) The party’s high-level response to the Supreme Court’s decision on marriage equality when it is issued. Justice Ginsburg observed yesterday that the Court would not dodge the issue, and that she expected the Court to take up the issue during the 2015-2016 term, “possibly” during the 2014-2015 term.

    If during the 2015-2016 term, as most observers seem to expect, then the decision is going to land right plunk in the middle of the 2016 Presidential election, probably during the 2016 Republican nominee selection process.

    The Democratic Party nominee’s response is entirely predictable. The nominee will support the decision, and can do so without political consequences. Marriage equality is no longer a hot issue in any state that the Democratic nominee has a realistic change of winning. Most blue and purple states already enjoy marriage equality, and public opinion favors marriage equality by a good margin in the rest. No downside.

    Republican candidates will face a potential downside. The Republican candidate cannot safely do what the Democratic candidate can, and support the decision, and get the social conservative base to turn out in high numbers.

    The Republican candidate is going to have to start with the premise that the decision, somehow, is wrong (the response on that score can range from “decided wrongly” to “activist judges ignoring the will of the people”), and then propose a path going forward.

    It is that latter part of the Republican response (ranging from “I decry the decision but the Court has spoken …” to outright calls for massive resistance and nullification) that is going to be the difficult part, and how the successful nominee responds is going to strongly influence how quickly the party turns, and in what direction.

  2. posted by Kosh III on

    ” limited government, here’s a tip: Offer concrete proposals for limiting it.”

    I think many realize that the “small government” blather of the GOP is just that. They know that that the government grew massively under Bush43, the Patriot Act which created the Security State, we acquired trillions in new debt, killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi innocents, destroyed the million or so Iraqi Christian community which had existed since sub-apostolic days. That Bush tried to destroy gay people, limited women’s rights, shipped 5 MILLION manufacturing jobs to COMMUNIST China and….do I need to go on?
    The GOP is all for themselves and the rest of us can go frak ourselves.

    • posted by Houndentenor on

      Everyone thinks the government spends too much and wastes too much. And then you bring up specific spending and someone starts screaming because they LIKE that spending. Every dollar in the budget was put there by some Congressman or Senator to appeal to someone somewhere. So unless proposals to cut spending include specifics, I can only laugh.

  3. posted by Mark on

    Last night, the Boston journalist David Bernstein tweeted (https://twitter.com/dbernstein/status/494987992780795905) a new poll showing that people in MA support same-sex marriage, 77%-17%.

    The official platform of this year’s MA Republican Party supports “traditional marriage” and calls for a vote to ban gay marriage.

    Even in a state where their opinion is -60, and the party’s gubernatorial nominee (Charlie Baker) claims he supports gay marriage, the base of the Republican Party can’t support it.

    I’m sure eventually we’ll see evolution–no officeholder any longer supports bans on interracial marriage. But a party in which only 8 members of Congress (out of around 280) and zero governors (out of 28) supports equality has a long way to go. A start might be when big Republican funders who say they support marriage (Paul Singer, David Koch) announce they won’t donate to anti-equality candidates.

  4. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    On a separate tangent (because it’s not enough for its own post), the idea that gays should rally to the defense of the Export-Import Bank (taxpayer dollars subsidizing selected private companies, referred to by some as crony capitalism or corporate welfare) because Obama appointed a gay man to run it and its critics include tea party activists, is beyond ludicrous.

    The article you linked has this (and only this) to say about LGBT support for the bank:

    Justin Nelson, president of the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, said his organization strongly supports renewal of the Export-Import Bank’s charter. According to Nelson, LGBT-owned businesses throughout the country are working with the NGLCC to enter the export trade and stand to benefit greatly from the Ex-Im Bank’s work.

    “We have been doing a series of educational workshops at our conferences over the last couple of years so LGBT business owners start to realize the opportunity in exporting,” Nelson told the Blade. “Ninety-five percent of the world’s consumers live outside the U.S. borders,” he said.

    “So having an organization like the Ex-Im that can come in and can work with our small business exporters – LGBT-owned businesses and non-LGBT owned businesses – is a huge opportunity,” said Nelson.

    You are dead right that “the idea that gays should rally to the defense” of the bank “because Obama appointed a gay man to run it … is beyond ludicrous”. So is your suggestion that the article provides any support for your assertion that this might be the reason why the NGLCC is supporting the bank. Get a grip or get a job with OneNewsNow.

    • posted by Jimmy on

      It’s also ludicrous to expect support for a gay conservative GOP candidate from non-conservative gays.

      • posted by Houndentenor on

        They should expect the same level of support that liberal gay candidates got from conservative gays. In other words, none.

    • posted by Sam on

      The article Stephen links to clearly valorizes a gay man’s struggle against tea party activists. He is portrayed as noble and his opponents as reactionaries. So Stephen’s summation is correct and Tom is being disingenuous, again.

      • posted by Tom Scharbach on

        How do you get from “clearly valorizes a gay man’s struggle against tea party activists” to “the idea that gays should rally to the defense [of the bank] because Obama appointed a gay man to run it“? It should be simple to explain if you are correct. So explain it.

  5. posted by J.P. on

    On the Ex-Im Bank, the article’s prominent placement in the Washington Blade, and the lead focusing on a gay man defending the bank against the Tea Party, does in fact suggest that this is a gay issue (or why would it be in the Blade?). The article’s only real critique of Ex-Im is from the left (environmental activists). For gay media, the only debate is between center left and points further to the left. Free market critics are lumped in with the Tea Party and dismissed.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      No argument at all that the Blade is treating the bank issue as “a gay issue” — the article states why it is doing so — or that the Blade‘s coverage looks at the question from the left, dismissing free market critics. I don’t even have an opinion on the question of whether the bank should be funded or not.

      All I pointed out was that the article doesn’t support Stephen’s suggestion a hew and cry is running through the land calling for “gays to rally to the defense” of the bank “because Obama appointed a gay man to run it”. At least from the facts given in the article, all that seems to be happening is that a LGBT business association which uses the bank as a funding source for its members is doing some lobbying on the bank’s behalf. That’s about as common as chicken shit in a chicken factory.

      Stephen goes all “OneNewsNow” (sensational leader, no supporting content) every once in a while, and one or the other of us usually calls him out on it when he does so. This it was my turn to point out that there was nothing behind the curtain.

      • posted by MR Bill on

        I actually know some small (under 50 employees) businesses
        and a couple of them are gay owned, and certainly employ gays)
        that actually need an Export Import Bank or something very much like it. I’m not seeing much (beyond ideological purity) to be gained by killing it entirely: and I haven’t seen enough analysis of it to see how to reform it if it actually is being abused. Like most things that promise less government this sounds like a sort of privatization, intended to enrich someone…

        • posted by Lori Heine on

          Letting the government craft laws and policies that favor some companies over others is not “less government.” It certainly isn’t “getting government out of the way.” But Republicans routinely call it that.

          Every corporation is a government-created entity. By the very nature of its existence, it depends upon government intervention in the marketplace. For Republicans (and right-wing libertarians) to talk about letting corporations basically have their way on everything is disingenuous in the extreme.
          Such a policy does not serve “free market” anything.

      • posted by Jorge on

        And you did quite well, Tom.

        Here’s an idea: Maybe this isn’t the first time the Washington Blade has written an article saying, “ZOMG! This guy is gay!1!11!!!” And maybe a whole bunch of people with really tight neckties in the “National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce” read the article and said, “Hey! I didn’t know I could do that!” And then later they decided, “I like this guy!” for reasons that were not just about him being gay.

        Hmm. Or maybe it was the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce that woke up one day and said, “Heya! This guy is gay?” After all, why does the Blade have to be the only group stalking gay people? And then they decided, as the Blade does sometimes, “I like this guy!” And then because once upon a time the Blade learned, “This Chamber of Commerce is Gay?”, when the newspaper had today’s “This guy is gay!” story, they decided to call another gay guy named Chamber of Commerce and ask, “Hey, you know this guy’s gay? What do you think about him?” Newspapers develop pet sources for their hard news stories.

        “No wonder people think we’re nuts! Gay News” strikes again.

  6. posted by Don on

    A “gay” issue in the “gay” media is whether or not there is a “LGBTQ” person involved in any way. Ex/Im isn’t at all a gay issue. But the gay media make it an issue when we are involved in anything. Still, they tend to leave the more significant issue alone.

    Remember that raucous debate on housing in 1993 when Roberta Achtenberg was nominated assistant HUD secretary? Yeah, me neither. But it was heralded like a coronation in the gay press. We had never been that high (openly gay).

    I was a member of the gay press at the time. We toyed with a homeless & gay storyline. But it basically didn’t go anywhere.

    So, Roberta was “gay” news. But only insofar as we got a seat at a table, not that particular table. I’m with Tom.

  7. posted by Houndentenor on

    I fully agree that the government (federal, state or local) should not be in the business of picking winners and losers. Once the banks were bailed out they should have been broken apart so that it would never be necessary to bail out “too big to fail” banks ever again. How did they get too big to fail? Because the regulators rubber stamped almost every proposed merger for the last several decades. Now the banks are bigger and failier than ever making a repeat of the 2008-2009 fiasco highly likely. (I’m tempted to say inevitable.)

    As far as other supply-side policies, tax cuts would help create growth if those getting the cuts actually invested that money back into the US economy. Unfortunately that’s not happening. Perhaps a tax cut on people who did just that so that we aren’t subsidizing billionaires who move their corporate headquarters overseas or who put all their money in an off-shore account. We should label such people as unpatriotic (because they are) and moreover we should strip such companies of all government contracts because they are now foreign companies.

  8. posted by Doug on

    After reading the article about the Export/Import Bank Stephen linked to and his interpretation as support just because the official is gay makes me believe that Stephen is being disingenuous at best or willfully ignorant at worst. Either way it’s not very flattering.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      Stephen is just being Stephen.

      He does this kind of thing (implies that a linked article says “X” without actually saying so, linking to an article that either (a) does not say “X” of (b) after taking into account the entirety of what is said rather than just the parsed snippets he quotes, says “not-X”) with sufficient frequency that I’ve made it a habit to read his links and see whether or not the links support his statements.

      It is all part of the political spin game. I don’t think that any further exploration of motive or ignorance is necessary.

      We had a great example of spin in Wisconsin yesterday. As I noted in another comment, the Wisconsin Supreme Court unanimously found that Julaine Appling’s lawsuit challenging Wisconsin’s Domestic Partnership Act utterly without merit, finding that the Domestic Partnership Act was no way, no how even remotely close to “identical or substantially similar” to the state’s marriage laws. Along the way, the court’s opinion humiliated Appling by writing extensively about the way in which she deceived Wisconsin voters during the 2006 amendment campaign. This from a court that is elected and very conservative.

      So the upshot? Here’s Julaine’s spin:

      “While we are disappointed that the Wisconsin Supreme Court did not agree with us, what’s important is that marriage remains between one man and one woman in Wisconsin and that even in this ruling, the court recognized that marriage is unique and nothing like relationships formed by same-sex couples,” said Julaine Appling, one of the plaintiffs in the case and president of Wisconsin Family Action.

      Spin worthy of Stephen’s best efforts, although Julaine, unlike Stephen, had enough low animal cunning to avoid providing a link to the Supreme Court’s decision so that anyone could fact-check her.

      • posted by Jorge on

        And you have enough high human cunning to hang this tantalizing decision out of reach and make us look it up.

        “To form a domestic partnership, individuals must be members of the same sex, must not be nearer of kin to each other than
        second cousins, must be at least 18 years old and capable of consent, must share a common residence, and must not be married to or in a domestic partnership with another person.”

        “…for the domestic partnership law to pass muster here, the ‘legal status’ created by that law may not be ‘substantially similar’ to the ‘legal status’ of marriage.”

        “The question is whether Plaintiffs have proved beyond
        a reasonable doubt
        that the same-sex domestic partnership
        created by Chapter 770 violates Article XIII, Section 13 of the
        Wisconsin Constitution.”

        Okay! Now I get it! There’s some significant differences between domestic partnerships and marriage, and we’re only just getting started. That doesn’t bode well for the proof beyond a reasonable doubt standard.

        I must admit I don’t fact-check Stephen’s links nearly as much as I should. My experience is that trying to hold people accountable for stunts like that is very satisfying in the short run but only does damage in the long run.

        • posted by Tom Scharbach on

          And you have enough high human cunning to hang this tantalizing decision out of reach and make us look it up.

          Not so much cunning, but the IGF limitation on the number of links — 1 — permitted per comment. The limitation is a good anti-spam limitation, but it means that well, I can only link to one source.

          In any event, the URL is http://media.jrn.com/documents/Wisconsin_Supreme_Court_Domestic_Partner_Registry_Ruling.pdf. The discussion of Appling’s bait and switch is at pages 22-26.

          I must admit I don’t fact-check Stephen’s links nearly as much as I should. My experience is that trying to hold people accountable for stunts like that is very satisfying in the short run but only does damage in the long run.

          I let the minor stuff — “Telling more truth than there is …”, as they put it in Texas — go. But I think that it is important to call out the whoppers.

          • posted by Jorge on

            The discussion of Appling’s bait and switch is at pages 22-26.

            Nasty piece of work. I can see why people are raising questions about why the Walker administration and the state Attorney General refused to defend the domestic partnership law.

            I’ve not read such dry opinions in a very long time 🙂

          • posted by Jorge on

            Oi! I just realized something, too.

            “Language is read where possible to give reasonable effect to every word, in order to
            avoid surplusage. . . . We take it that the use of “substantially similar” means that a status that is merely
            similar is not meant to be prohibited.”

            Is *that* why that federal court struck down the federal-run Obamacare exchanges? Not just every word, but every letter is being given meaning. We’ve just increased the size of an already 2000-page bill exponentially.

          • posted by Tom Scharbach on

            Nasty piece of work.

            Yes it was.

            Appling repeatedly assured Wisconsin voters that the amendment would not prohibit the legislature from granting rights and benefits to gays and lesbians in same-sex relationships — the only thing that the amendment would prohibit, she said over and over again in public forums, was “marriage under another name”, that is, legally-equivalent civil unions.

            I was a member of a panel with Appling, she speaking for and me speaking in opposition to the amendment. I raised the Michigan experience, in which anti-marriage Christians used the “identical or substantially similar” language in Michigan’s amendment to bring a lawsuit trying to block benefits for public employees. Appling — and I quote — said that my concern was “delusional’. She did that a lot, too.

            Yet no sooner was the ink from Governor Doyle’s pen dry on the Wisconsin Partnership Act, Appling sued. She is a snake, and that is being unkind to snakes.

            Appling’s mendacity was too much for even Senator Scott Fitzgerald, who orchestrated the Republican Party’s tactics during the 2006 amendment fight. When Appling brought the lawsuit, Fitzgerald told the press he would have nothing to do with it, that he understood that the legislature had the power to grant rights and benefits to same-sex couples so long as the rights, taken as a whole, did not closely approximate the rights and benefits granted under marriage laws.

            I can see why people are raising questions about why the Walker administration and the state Attorney General refused to defend the domestic partnership law.

            Attorney General Van Hollen is an anti-equality true believer. Gays and lesbians disgust him. You can hear it in his voice when he speaks about gays and lesbians. He sounds like Brian Brown.

            His refusal to defend the Domestic Partnership Act is particularly ludicrous in light of his pious insistence that it is his obligation to defend the anti-marriage amendment in federal court because “that’s my job”. He and Appling were cut from the same cloth.

            Governor Walker is anti-equality, but without the obvious homophobic overtones. With him, I think that refusing to defend the lawsuit was pandering to Appling and the social conservative base.

            In any event, I hope that you will forgive us in Wisconsin, who fought so long and so hard against Appling and her lies and dirty tactics, for feeling satisfaction that the Wisconsin Supreme Court exposed her so clearly.

  9. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    As a side note, the Wisconsin Supreme Court handed down a unanimous decision yesterday upholding the constitutionality of the state’s Domestic Partnership Act under Wisconsin’s nuclear option “identical or substantially” similar anti-marriage amendment, effectively handing Julaine Appling, CEO of Wisconsin Family Action, her lunch. Finally. Julaine has been buzzing around Wisconsin on her broom for too long now.

    The outcome was not a surprise — the Act had been previously found constitutional by a trial court and in a unanimous appellate court decision — but the interesting news was that Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, which is elected and strongly conservative, voted unanimously. I didn’t expect that result and neither did many other people who are familiar with the court’s workings.

    The decision results in a legal curiosity that illustrates the logical contortions required by the anti-marriage amendments. Wisconsin’s Domestic Partnership Act was ruled constitutional under Wisconsin’s anti-marriage amendment, which was ruled unconstitutional in a federal court decision handed down by Judge Barbara Crabb of the Western District of Wisconsin. The short form: The Act is constitutional under an unconstitutional anti-marriage amendment. Go figure. But making it sound like things like that make sense is why lawyers make the big bucks.

  10. posted by Jorge on

    But making it sound like things like that make sense is why lawyers make the big bucks.

    The federal decision is, I’m sure, being appealed, so it’s not like the state court can safely call it controlling just yet.

    And ruling that the act is constitutional under the contested state law means you hand the opposition its lunch and say they have no case. Such a decision has no hope of being overturned, no matter what the final outcome is federally. That saves a lot of time. Now let’s see…

    “Organizations like Log Cabin Republicans and Project Right Side are also pushing Republicans by providing data about changes in public opinion and, like lobbyists, offering lawmakers and their offices a “safe space” to talk about the challenges facing LGBT individuals.”

    That statement rubs me the wrong way. Government officials should not be afraid to use their offices to solve problems, and be frank with their constituents about the problems they are solving. A Republican is a Republican and should be able to speak like one, no matter the issue.

    *Sigh.* I suppose that requires practice.

    Bush and Ashcroft didn’t need any practice before they opened their big mouths. Hmm, but Richardson and Palin did.

    “There are now 31 states, plus the District of Columbia, that have legalized same-sex marriage or seen a ban overturned in court. The most recent decision came Monday in Virginia, where the 4th Circuit tossed out a gay marriage ban.

    ‘We are winning faster than I can keep track of,’ one advocate told The Hill in an email.”

    Me, too.

    Everyone thinks the government spends too much and wastes too much. And then you bring up specific spending and someone starts screaming because they LIKE that spending.

    Does anyone here care to see me argue that using tax money to fund shelters for GLBT youth who have been kicked out of or run away from their abusive homes is a completely unnecessary boondoggle that promotes corporate welfare and encourages embezzlement?

    • posted by Houndentenor on

      Shelters for kids who have been kicked out of their homes (gay or otherwise) are unnecessary? I suppose you are fine with them sleeping on park benches then?

      • posted by Tom Jefferson III on

        Houndentenor;

        Did you not forget: the right to life is sacred, but the right to say, housing (or health care) is negotiable. ;0)

        • posted by Doug on

          For the right wing, life is only sacred from conception to birth, after that they don’t give a damn if you get healthcare, a place to live, food or even if you are abused, sexually and/or physically.

      • posted by Doug on

        And probably joining the sex trade to eat as well.

      • posted by Jorge on

        You see? This is what happens when people tell the truth: interest groups and haters twist their words around.

        I did not say I might shelters for kids who have been kicked out of their homes are unnecessary. I said I could argue that using tax money to fund them is unnecessary.

        Don’t ever criticize the small government right for disingenuousness again.

        • posted by Jorge on

          *Sigh.* The first sentence in the second paragraph should add: “…I might argue shelters for kids…”

        • posted by Houndentenor on

          I wish we didn’t need them. I’m horrified that we do. But the non-profits and churches cannot keep up with problems like this. It’s just ignorance to think that they can. If they could, they would.

          • posted by Jorge on

            That’s a little more like it, but call me skeptical.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      A Republican is a Republican and should be able to speak like one, no matter the issue.

      Of course. But the Republican dilemma is this: If a Republican “speaks like one” about gay and lesbian issues — at least so far as “speaking like one” embodies the 2012 Republican platform and the party’s historic antipathy toward equality — it costs general election votes from pro-equality Republicans and independent in an increasing number of states. On the other hand, if a Republican doesn’t “speak like one” on gay and lesbian issues, the social conservative base will hang him/her out to dry in the general election. It is a lose-lose situation.

      The calculus is different state-by-state. In “red” states, for the next election cycle or two, the calculus favors “speaking like one”. In the “blue” states, it doesn’t make any difference. The “purple” states are the problem.

      • posted by Jorge on

        …It is a lose-lose situation.

        You say there are pro-equality Republicans and a social conservative base.

        A Republican who cannot defend the middle ground between the two is someone unqualified to hold office.

        • posted by Francis on

          As if the social conservative base are ever going to let there BE a middle ground that isn’t completely theoretical. They would much prefer to claim that the will of God, or the Founding Fathers, (whichever they are claiming to represent at that particular moment) accepts no compromise, and typically froth at the mouth whenever compromise or change is brought up.

        • posted by Tom Scharbach on

          I agree with Francis.

          Social conservative opposition is unrelenting and seemingly unwilling to compromise on anything. It is very hard for me to imagine what a “middle ground” would look like for a Republican candidate during the next few election cycles.

          Remember the “great civil unions compromise” of 2009, the idea that if we would just back off on marriage equality and accept civil unions instead, social conservatives would accept it?

          We all know how that worked out.

          We just finished up four years of litigation in Wisconsin defending the Domestic Partnership Act granting medical, end-of-life, burial and inheritance rights — about 40 out of 200 marital rights — against the social conservatives who trooped up and down the state in 2006 saying that the legislature could grant limited rights to gay and lesbian couples.

          Remember Tim Pawlenty of Minnesota, the “moderate” who was “forced” to veto a bill granting funeral and final disposition rights, and nothing else, to same-sex couples?

          Or Michigan, where social conservatives litigated under Michigan’s anti-marriage amendment for years, forcing cities and counties to roll back domestic partner benefits previously granted to same-sex couples?

          Or Houston, where social conservatives just got beaten back on a voter initiative to roll back the city’s new anti-discrimination ordinance, only to announce that the matter was now headed to the courts for a long round of litigation?

          Examples of social conservative unwillingness to find a “middle ground” are endless.

          What, Jorge, would a “middle ground” look like in your view? And what makes you think that social conservatives would embrace a “middle ground”?

  11. posted by Lori Heine on

    So, we can spend billions on wars to murder civilians and rob them of their stuff. We can spend billions to bail out banks and insurance companies. But kids who would otherwise sleep on the streets, sell their bodies to stay alive or starve…well, that’s unnecessary?

    And you’re a priest, are you? I guess that speaks volumes.

    • posted by Jorge on

      I resent your attempt to put words in my mouth by twisting them around.

      On second thought, you seem to think I’m a priest, so I’m not sure this is worth my time.

      Well, since you don’t seem interested in the idea, I hope you’re not going to ever critique anyone’s small government credentials, either.

      • posted by Lori Heine on

        Jorge, the words in your mouth come out twisted so much of the time, people would need a special Google app just to figure out what the hell you mean.

        Why, pray tell, does it waste money to invest in shelters for homeless LGBT teens, and not when we pour it down the various rat-holes that funnel into big corporate coffers? If you’re trying to say that BOTH are a waste (I don’t have the Berlitz guide, so I can’t be sure), then should we trim all the fat at once, or start with LGBT youth services? If the latter, then why?

        You did at one point, in a comment on this website, make some vague reference to being a priest. Mea culpa maxima at my grievous incorrection in assuming that mean that you are one.

        • posted by Jorge on

          You did at one point, in a comment on this website, make some vague reference to being a priest.

          I was probably referring to either my personality type or my being single, likely as an ironic jab at my faith.

          Why, pray tell, does it waste money to invest in shelters for homeless LGBT teens, and not when we pour it down the various rat-holes that funnel into big corporate coffers?

          ……

          I’m not sure I understand what you think the difference is between a nonprofit corporation and a business that has big corporate coffers.

          If you’re trying to say that BOTH are a waste (I don’t have the Berlitz guide, so I can’t be sure), then should we trim all the fat at once, or start with LGBT youth services? If the latter, then why?

          *Shrug.* The way budget cuts tend to work is usually an all-or-nothing deal, at vicious random. That isn’t a bad way to go. Better, however, would be if you didn’t have to make such cuts in the first place.

          • posted by Lori Heine on

            If we cut out one day’s worth of Pentagon spending waste, we could feed vast numbers of people for a year. From the standpoint of shrewd economics–were that our genuine interest–we’d certainly know where to start.

            We don’t start there because the powers-that-be won’t permit it. Thus, when we (or at least Republicans) talk about cutting government spending or waste, they always want to start by eliminating programs for the poor.

            And why wouldn’t we want to make such cuts in the first place? The entire economy needs to be restructured so that the engine that drives it is no longer military spending. The whole mess is really nothing more than a social welfare program for gigantic corporations and the rich.

          • posted by Houndentenor on

            the real problem with military spending is not the military itself but the pork spending that the generals don’t want or need. It’s big government giveaways to campaign donors. It’s bribery and cronyism and we ought to be ashamed that we’ve let it go on so long.

  12. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    You did at one point, in a comment on this website, make some vague reference to being a priest.

    Your memory is fine, Lorie. I remember the comment, too, because I was startled, so I checked back.

Comments are closed.