LGBT Democratic activists are never at a loss to point out GOP nastiness toward gay legal equality and social inclusion. But when they claim that nothing has—or it’s implied, can—change in the Republican party, they are being willfully disingenuous.
This past week saw Dr. Ben Carson, popular on the GOP social conservative right, come out with some asinine claims that being gay is “absolutely” a choice — and prison proves it, “Because a lot of people who go into prison go into prison straight — and when they come out, they’re gay.” Carson’s remarks were so over the top that even he had to backtrack and issue an apology, sort of.
This same week saw GOP mega-donor David Koch, one half of the brother duo that’s a bête noire of progressive Democrats, join with other conservatives in filing an amicus brief asking the Supreme Court to rule against bans on same-sex marriage. LGBT Democrats will reply that this hardly makes up for the Koch brothers supporting anti-gay candidates through the years (the Kochs give their dollars to conservatives who favor less government intrusion in business and the economy, and many but not all of these candidates are also social conservatives).
But once freedom to marry is the law of the land from sea to sea, and with gay servicemembers now serving openly in the military, the political calculus is going to shift markedly as regards gay issues. There will be an intransigent religious right, but mainstream conservatives will embrace the new consensus that gay marriage, like gays in the military, is a done deal and so let’s move on.
The GOP may, more broadly, defend religious liberty from those who feel wounded that everyone doesn’t share and express their progressive views, and I believe there is merit in the party’s doing so. That will incite LGBT Democrats, but it’s a side skirmish. The war will have been won.
More. Via National Journal:
Any Republican who says something incendiary about gay people will surely get media play. But with public rebuttals, political counsel and money, gay conservative groups are working to build a wall of defense to keep these comments on the fringe—and out of the 2016 conversation.
Furthermore. Some LGBT progressive have in the past accused David Koch of “pinkwashing” the Koch brother’s record by embracing legal equality for same-sex couples. But in the days since Koch signed the amicus supporting same-sex marriage, it’s becoming clearer that the media response around the announcement (fueled to no small extent by the willingness of Koch’s publicists to cooperate) is meant to send a signal to candidates who receive (or will receive) Koch support. Which is, opposition to same-sex marriage is not going to be a winning position going forward, so get over it.
If so, not everyone is getting the message, however. The desire to run on Jeb Bush’s right is a contravening force that will be a political dead end, but it may take at least another election cycle to make that clear to the intransigents.
12 Comments for “The New Consensus and the Intransigents”
posted by Houndentenor on
There is some obvious change in the GOP. It’s small but sometimes significant. All the (liberal) gay blogs mentioned this story, for example:
http://joemygod.blogspot.com/2015/02/west-virginia-gop-senate-leader-says-no.html
posted by Tom Scharbach on
LGBT Democrats will reply that this hardly makes up for the Koch brothers supporting anti-gay candidates through the years …
Thinking about the rather defensive tone of this post, I remembered an article by Frank Rich from a couple of years ago.
In the article, Rich argued that it was important not to whitewash the role that liberal politicians and institutions “played in slowing and at some junctures halting gay civil rights in recent decades” as well as advancing equality for gays and lesbians, and that it was important to hold them to account for their failures to stand up and be counted at critical junctures:
It was a timely reminder to those of us who were aligned with the Democratic Party at a point when our years and years of work within the party were finally paying off, not to lose sight of the reality of that battle in the euphoria of success.
Stephen’s comment about David Koch puts his support for anti-gay candidates into perspective (“the Kochs give their dollars to conservatives who favor less government intrusion in business and the economy, and many but not all of these candidates are also social conservatives“), and that observation is applicable more generally to the “libertarian” wing of the Republican Party, which has “talked the talk” (filed briefs and published erudite think-tank articles) but not “walked the walk” (making any effort to fight the power and influence of the social conservative wing of the party), all in service of keeping the Republican coalition intact.
As Stephen observes correctly, the Republican Party is beginning to change, to “move on” in response to external changes in the political and cultural environment that resulted from the work of the “LGBT left”, as Stephen likes to call us.
In celebrating the changes that have come and are coming, however, I think that we should take Rich’s observations about the Democratic Party to heart with respect to the Republican Party, and not whitewash the role that that “pro-equality” conservative politicians and institutions “played in slowing and at some junctures halting gay civil rights in recent decades”.
The “libertarian” strategy within the Republican Party (support equality in theory while supporting candidates who opposed equality, keeping the Republican coalition intact while waiting for external change agents to change the political and cultural environment so that the party could “move on”) has worked well for “libertarian” Republicans like Stephen, the Koch brothers, Cato and Republican-aligned LGBT groups like GOProud and LCR.
But as is the case in the Democratic Party, “While same-sex weddings are indeed a happy ending, they are haunted by the ghosts of many gay men, too many of them forgotten, who died tragically and unnecessarily while too many good people did nothing.”
It may be churlish to point that out, but like Rich, I think that it is important to remember our history, unvarnished and accurately.
posted by Jorge on
Thinking about the rather defensive tone of this post
Hey, nobody wants to talk about Ben Carson?
Neither do I. I recognize the name and that he had a good reputation, but wouldn’t recognize him otherwise. Well he has my attention now! Maybe in another four to eight years or so I’ll think he has something worthwhile to say. Even our criminal ex-police commissioner Bernard Kerik condemned Carson’s remarks (he used to be our corrections commissioner).
That’s where Tyler Deaton, senior adviser at American Unity Fund and its sister super PAC of the same name, comes in. His organization, which was founded by billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer, works with candidates to craft thoughtful answers to a question that, because of Carson, will almost certainly come up again.
Might help if the Democratic candidates did some work on the choice question, too. It’s tripped up a couple of would-be Democratic presidents.
Well, I’d rather have an evil president than whatever Carson is.
…In celebrating the changes that have come and are coming, however, I think that we should take Rich’s observations about the Democratic Party to heart with respect to the Republican Party, and not whitewash the role that that “pro-equality” conservative politicians and institutions “played in slowing and at some junctures halting gay civil rights in recent decades”.
That’s fine, but not at the expense of divisiveness over how much accountability there should be.
Someone else will have to do it. I’m more concerned about seeing the Catholic Church hold itself accountable for its actions.
posted by Wilberforce on
Change in the Republican Party is coming, and it’s good. But of course, Stephen uses it as another opportunity to insult gay democrats. The one track mind is very boring.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Stephen’s distaste for, and sense of victimhood at the hands of, the “LGBT left” goes back a long way.
In fact, the first article I ever read that Stephen authored was a 1994 article titled “Gay-Bashing by Homosexuals“, a long lament about the ways in which “politically correct” liberal gays and lesbians targeted gay white males, “scapegoat[ing] gay white men as privileged members of the patriarchy and belittle[ing] the bigotry we face”, “bent on keeping gay white male professionals in their place — writing checks and making guilty self-criticism”.
Stephen has been banging the anti-left drum for at least two decades now, and he isn’t going to change on that score in this lifetime. He may mellow out a bit as he gets his cake (equality as a fact on the ground, and the Republican Party having “moved on”) and gets to eat it, too (coming out of the party’s anti-equality campaign with the Republican coalition intact to protect his financial position), but I wouldn’t count on it.
I ignore Stephen’s anti-left jibes, for the most part, and try to work with the substance of his posts.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
The Democratic Party got better on gay rights issues — mainly because party members (gay and straight) worked within the party (state. local and federal) to — to borrow a line from a certain space ship captain — “make it so”. It didn’t happen overnight and their were probably lots of twists and turn along the way.
The Republican Party is only going to get better then party members (gay and straight) are willing to put in the time and energy to “make it so”.
I am pleased that the Koch brothers have actually filed a brief (or hired a lawyer to do so or hired a lawyer who hired a paralegal to do so or hired a team of lawyers who hired….) It is more then just saying nice things about gay people at a cocktail party (which is basically all that they did).
Carson may or may not actually be the GOP front runner. His ‘apology’ was frankly about as lame as his initial statement. How many GOP frontrunners are going to support something beyond (a) don’t ask me that question, (b) I am really nice to gay people that I know, so that gives me a pass ion my bad policies, right? (c) it must be a choice, not a choice like religion or gun ownership.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
A legal side note on Alabama: The ACLU and a number of other civil rights and/or LGBT advocacy groups filed a motion in federal District Court this afternoon asking the court to expand the existing federal case in Alabama to include all of the Probate Judges in the state and certify the case as a class action on behalf of gays and lesbians seeking marriage.
Assuming that the court expands the case and certifies a class action, the motion seeks preliminary injunction ordering Probate Judges statewide to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.
If the court grants the motion, the situation in Alabama is going to heat up quickly, I suspect.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Any Republican who says something incendiary about gay people will surely get media play.
Ben Carson, who has about the same chance of becoming president as Ed the Talking Horse, would be ignored by the media if the Republican Party hadn’t been on an anti-equality crusade during the last decade, and if Carson weren’t polling near the top (Walker and Bush, about 15%, Huckabee and Carson, about 12%, in the RCP average, with everybody else down in the single digits) in the Republican presidential race right now.
But with public rebuttals, political counsel and money, gay conservative groups are working to build a wall of defense to keep these comments on the fringe—and out of the 2016 conversation.
I’m glad to see that gay conservative groups are working this election cycle to relegate candidates like Carson to the fringe of Republican politics. I hope that gay conservative groups will make a concerted effort to counter anti-gay and anti-equality statements as the primary season goes forward, even if the statements are less obviously deranged.
That’s what has been missing in previous election cycles. As far as I can tell, gay conservative groups didn’t call out Rick Perry or Rick Santorum or Michele Bachmann in the 2012 election cycle, or make a serious ruckus about the 2012 platform, which was the most explicitly anti-gay platform in the party’s recent history, or so much as grumble with the party put forward a candidate who pledged to fight for a national anti-marriage amendment and appoint Scalia clones to the Supreme Court.
The American Unity Fund is the one pro-equality conservative group I’ve admired over the years, as I’ve said many times. American Unity puts change ahead of “a seat at the table”, and puts its money where its mouth is. That’s what is needed if the party is going to change.
American Unity put serious money into Republican congressional candidates — Dan Innes, Richard Tisei and Richard Hanna (in the form of money to defeat an anti-equality Democrat, Claudia Tenney) — who are champions of equality and who actively challenged fellow Republicans about the party’s anti-equality positions during their campaigns.
It did so when most “pro-equality” conservatives were flocking to Carl DeMaio, who made a point of not challenging the party, and made it clear that he never would.
In the last election cycle, American Unity did what has long been needed in Republican politics, and that’s why American Unity is important — it fights back. I hope we see a lot more of it going forward, and I hope that LCR will stiffen its spine this time around.
posted by Joseph Dunsay on
Mark Charles Hardie wants to be the next senator from California. He’s running as a Republican and strongly supports equality for LGBT individuals.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-charles-hardie/gays-are-gods-protecting-lgbt_b_6748868.html
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
It almost seemed like the National Journal article was suggesting that gay conservatives would rather that GOP Presidential hopefully simply didn’t talk about gay rights. I suspect that was just poor writing on the part of the journal — its not the first time –, but simply not talking an issue, is not really going to make it ‘go away’.
The American Unity Fund is actually doing what Republicans — gay and straight — should have been doing decades ago. They are late to the equality party, as it were, but they are doing the sort of thing that Democrats — gay and straight — started doing in the 1970s and 1980s.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
If so, not everyone [link to Rand Paul’s moronic statement that he is “offended” by the term “marriage” when used in the context of same-sex marriage] is getting the message, however. The desire to run on Jeb Bush’s right is a contravening force that will be a political dead end, but it may take at least another election cycle to make that clear to the intransigents.
Just about everyone in the Republican race for the 2016 nomination is running on Jeb Bush’s right (some more subtly than others, to be sure), because they all know that the primary-voting part of the Republican base is way far to the right of the “establishment” formula (“I support traditional marriage. I have a long record to prove it. I believe that marriage is a matter for the states and the people to decide, not unelected judges. However, the Supreme Court has spoken, and homosexuals can marry. I believe that we should respect the rule of law, as well as the religious beliefs of those who, like me, support traditional marriage.“) that Bush has adopted.
But I would gently remind you that Bush is running to the right of the American people, who embrace marriage equality by a 55-60/35-40 margin. We’ll see how that works for him.
But in the days since Koch signed the amicus supporting same-sex marriage, it’s becoming clearer that the media response around the announcement (fueled to no small extent by the willingness of Koch’s publicists to cooperate) is meant to send a signal to candidates who receive (or will receive) Koch support. Which is, opposition to same-sex marriage is not going to be a winning position going forward, so get over it.
I guess that the Koch brothers won’t be supporting any of the 2016 Republican presidential candidates then …
posted by Jorge on
Rand Paul: “Ultimately, we could have fixed this a long time ago if we just allowed contracts between adults.”
But you didn’t. And now you have the gall to complain that someone is fixing it.
“We didn’t have to call it marriage, which offends myself and a lot of people.”
Drinking, premarital sex, the n-word, male chauvinism, and race-baiting, and this website’s and this community’s obsession with the Catholic Church offend me, but I don’t have a wannabe president’s propaganda telling me I’m better than them, and I don’t need it, either.