IGF CultureWatch

In light of Missouri GOP Congressman and Senate candidate Todd Akins’ remarks about a woman’s ability to tense up and avoid pregnancy during a “legitimate rape,” New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie reportedly said:

Akin should to resign from public life, not so much because of the “incomprehensive” statement, but for his beliefs. “I listened to the video three times,” Christie said. “It is some of the stupidest stuff I ever heard in my life.” “I’m offended by what he thinks,” he said. “My problem is that he thinks it,” said Christie.

Meanwhile, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabbee, a leader of the party’s social conservatives, is blasting the GOP for not standing behind Akin. In a fundraising email on Akin’s behalf, Huckabee slams the party for selling out social conservatives, writing:

The Party’s leaders have for reasons that aren’t rational, left him behind on the political battlefield, wounded and bleeding, a casualty of his self-inflicted, but not intentional wound. In a Party that supposedly stands for life, it was tragic to see the carefully orchestrated and systematic attack on a fellow Republican. Not for a moral failure or corruption or a criminal act, but for a misstatement which he contritely and utterly repudiated. I was shocked by GOP leaders and elected officials who rushed so quickly to end the political life of a candidate over a mistaken comment in an interview. This was a serious mistake, but it was blown out of proportion not by the left, but by Akin’s own Republican Party. Is this what the party really thinks of principled pro-life advocates? Do we forgive and forget the verbal gaffes of Republicans who are “conveniently pro-life” for political advantage, but crucify one who truly believes that every life is sacred?

In retrospect, this might be seen as a defining moment for the GOP. The religious right has just cost them a Missouri senate seat, and possibly control of the Senate. A cadre of loyal foot soldiers is increasingly being exposed as a reactionary liability.

From the Log Cabin Republicans, on the GOP platform:

[Family Research Council head] Tony Perkins may be boasting today about having written an antigay marriage plank into the Republican Party platform, but it will be a hollow and short-lived victory,” said Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper. “The obsessive exclusion of gay couples, including military families, from the rights and responsibilities of marriage, combined with bizarre rhetoric about ‘hate campaigns’ and ‘the homosexual rights agenda’ are clear signs of desperation among social conservatives who know that public opinion is rapidly turning in favor of equality.

Unfortunately, what voters can’t see in this document is the significant debate within the Committee. We were pleased to see vigorous debate on amendments in support of civil unions and to delete language regarding DOMA. While these measures failed, the future direction of our party clearly trends toward inclusion. This may well be the last time a platform will cater to the likes of the Family Research Council on marriage, and the fact is, platforms rarely influence policy. Tony will never see his discrimination written into the United States Constitution.”

Let’s hope so.

Here’s an example that shows how LGBT Democratic partisan operatives who present themselves as LGBT activists owe their primary allegiance to the party, not to struggle for gay legal equality.

As San Diego’s LGBT Weekly reports, far-right Democratic Kansas state representative Jan Pauls will run against a Republican with a record of support for gay rights in the state legislative race. Democrat Pauls authored the Kansas anti-marriage-equality law and has fought hard to keep its sodomy laws on the books. LGBT activist groups are unlikely to support her, but the Equality Coalition “has not decided whether or not to back [Paul’s opponent Dakota Bass] in the general election.” Bass is a former board member of the Hutchison chapter of the Equality Coalition, and until recently a Democrat himself. He describes himself as “socially liberal” and a “fiscal conservative,” and said he favors same-sex marriage.

The Kansas Democratic Party said it is supporting Pauls, as it does all party nominees.

It’s just a state legislative race, with a truly awful anti-gay Democrat against a truly pro-gay Republican, and the LGBT activist coalition (of which the GOP candidate has been a member!) can’t say whether they’ll unhitch themselves from the Democratic Party and support the Republican. And gay activists wonder why the GOP isn’t showing more progress on gay issues.

David Boaz parses recent survey data that finds about 13% of the electorate consists of independent “deliberators” who are highly likely to vote but as of yet remain undecided. Among this small group who will determine the election:

64% support “smaller government with fewer services,” and 63% favor gay marriage. The former position, of course, puts them closer to Republicans, and the latter closer to Democrats. These are the true swing voters, and they might well be described as fiscally conservative and socially liberal.

Boaz has more to say about (small “l”) libertarian-minded voters—and why they are a leading indicator of how the much larger number of self-identified “independents” are likely to vote—in this video interview with reason.tv.

You might expect that given the importance of these voters both Democrats and Republicans would try to woo them. Yet the Democrats remain captive to the big government left as the Republicans remain captive to the socially conservative right. That may please the ideologues and party operatives of the left and right, but it leaves the broad swath of the country in despair.

Increasingly, we’re going to see social conservatives act as a drag on the GOP, as demonstrated by Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin’s idiotic statements about rape and abortion, which in all likely have assured that Missouri’s senate seat will remain in big-spending Democrat Sen. Claire McCaskill’s hands.

And then there was Pat Robertson’s recent warning about adopting foreign-born kids who might have been sexually abused and thus might turn out “weird.”

More. Democrats spent $1.5 million to help Akin win the GOP primary because they believed he gave incumbent Senator Claire McCaskill her best shot at retaining her seat. They must be chortling now. But it has a corrupting influence on the (small “d”) democratic process. You see this as well when some LGBT progressives oppose gay Republicans running for office because a GOP that remains vehemently anti-gay is in their own partisan self-interest.

“Have you ever wondered why conservatives are so opposed to government interference in the marketplace yet so tolerant, even welcoming, of its role in our personal lives?” asks Bloomberg columnist Caroline Baum. She observes:

The idea that government knows best is anathema to fiscal conservatives, who believe in a limited government of enumerated powers. How is it that same government can be the ultimate authority on how we live our lives, whom we can marry, how we raise our children, where we worship, what we inhale and ingest, and what we do behind closed doors?

When Baum asks the question of Cato Institute libertarian David Boaz and Heritage Institute conservative David Azerrad, she gets illuminating responses.

In response to the shooting at the Family Research Council headquarters in Washington, D.C., the Log Cabin Republicans strike the right tone:

“As fellow conservatives, Log Cabin Republicans are often in the same room with the Family Research Council. Though we rarely see eye to eye, we absolutely condemn the violence that occurred today,” said R. Clarke Cooper, Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director. “Keeping in mind that at this time we know little about the shooter or his motives, whatever our political disagreements, in this country, we use ballots, not bullets, to address them. We offer prayers for the injured security guard, his family, and everybody at the FRC building, barely a fifteen minute walk away from Log Cabin Republicans national headquarters. In many ways, this is a reminder that we aren’t so far apart.”

More. The shooter was identified as a volunteer at the DC Center for the LGBT Community. A coalition of 25 gay rights groups released a statement through GLAAD condemning the shooting.

Furthermore. Conservative pundit John Hinderaker blogs:

There seems to be no doubt that he wanted to shoot up the Family Research Council because he disagrees with the FRC’s position on gay marriage. It is also reasonable to suspect–although presumably more will be known about this in due course–that he was influenced by the many left-wing and gay activist organizations that labeled the FRC a “hate group.”

And a roundup from The Hill: Shooting spurs heated debate on gay rights, ‘hate group’ label.

The shooting plays into the narrative of intolerant gays, the same as the Chick-fil-A zoning blowback. And many LGBT gay progressive activists can be, in fact, hatefully intolerant — something this blog, gay Republicans and others have experienced first hand. But that doesn’t obscure the fact that the Family Research Council has earned our antipathy not simply because it opposes marriage equality, but because (as The Hill story points out), it has used extreme language and cast spurious allegations to demean gay people. This gets lost, however, just as the story became Chick-fil-A being targeted by liberal politicians instead of Chick-fil-A’s corporate donations to organizations—such as the Family Research Council—that work every day to deny gay people legal equality.

That being said, labeling the Family Research Council a “hate group” was never going to convince anyone of anything if they were not already in our camp. Too often, the left and the right turn to incendiary rhetoric instead of sound argument and debate. Emotions get inflamed, but little light is shed.

Rep. Paul Ryan, Romney’s veep pick, while not a social conservative fire-breather, supported the anti-gay (and anti-federalist) federal marriage amendment and opposed repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell.” But he is one of the few politicos to have shown any sanity and courage about the entitlement and deficit crises, which liberal Democrats continue to shamefully demagogue for political advantage.

The political challenge of our time is to push the Democratic party back toward relative Clintonian fiscal moderation (imposed on Bill Clinton by a Republican congress), while continuing the struggle within the GOP to counter the pernicious control of hidebound social conservatives who will otherwise doom the party’s prospects among the next generation of voters.

More. From the Log Cabin Republicans, “Congressman Ryan’s 2007 vote in favor of the Employment Nondiscrimination Act and his consistent willingness to engage with Log Cabin on a range of issues speaks to his record as a fair-minded policymaker.” From GOProud, “Paul Ryan is one of the few political leaders anywhere in the country willing to tell the American people the truth about the unprecedented budget crisis we are facing, and – more importantly – willing to put forward bold plans to put this country back on the road to fiscal solvency.”

Social conservatives have pushed both Romney and Ryan to the right on gay issues. Should the ticket win, we’d have to see where they situate themselves.

However, if the issue of gay equality dominates all others, you won’t be voting for the GOP ticket. But those who believe the economic well-being of future generations of Americans is at severe risk given another four years of the present administration, support for the GOP is not an indication of self-loathing, as LGBT Democratic operatives would have it.

Another option: lodging a protest against both parties by voting for Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson, who strongly favors both marriage equality and deficit reduction with real entitlement reform. Third-party candidates don’t get elected nationally, but their forward-looking agendas can, in time, change the terms of the debate.

Furthermore. Reader JamesR comments:

“Both Ryan and Romney once supported ENDA. They were, of course, pushed to the right — politicians respond to the prevailing political winds. Neither is hardcore anti-gay — it’s not what they want to talk about, and never has been. They are not Santorum or Huckabee.

So, if the winds can be changed — yes, probably in the GOP they can’t be, but IF they could — I don’t doubt that Romney and Ryan would again be supportive on gay issues.

And that remains the challenge.

Everything is relative. Social rightists are incensed that Romney hasn’t taken a rhetorically harder anti-gay line. This, in short, is what we’re up against within the GOP.

Which is not to say, as some LGBT Democratic operatives/activists imply, that we should give up and all embrace the party of bigger, more intrusive and redistributionist government that has brought us four years of such prosperity (and, at the same time, let us know it’s all George Bush’s fault and forever will be). The battle must be joined on both fronts.

updated from bottom, Aug. 6, 2012

Aug. 1 was Chick-fil-A Appreciation Day, even in Massachusetts.

As Instapundit Glenn Reynolds blogs:

I don’t think this can be interpreted as opposition to gay marriage, so much as a response to bullying. But I do think that the bullying has probably tainted the gay-marriage brand, which is too bad. The gay-marriage argument is already winning — there’s no need to engage in Rahm Emanuel-style attacks, and doing so merely invites pushback.

But I think that’s far too optimistic, given the reported comments by the lined-up out-the-door patrons of the fast food chain, which donates millions to anti-gay groups. And it’s not so good for gay employees at the outlets these days, either.

On a more hopeful note, David Boaz blogs at Politico:

As Timothy Kincaid writes at Box Turtle Bulletin, “The company has a new label: ‘the brand of choice for anti-gay people.’”

That was good for the company on Wednesday. But I can’t believe it will be a good brand in the long run. Watch for an increase in sales of McDonald’s chicken sandwiches this week.

Let’s hope.

Further thoughts. I’ve reflected a bit more on what the Chick-fil-A eruption signifies, and I think it points to some gaping problems for us. As I’ve argued for many years, the fight for gay legal equality and liberty, while in obvious ways advanced by support from liberal Democrats, is also undermined by the close identification of our struggle with those who advocate ever-larger, more intrusive government and more control over the lives of America’s citizens by liberal government elites. The Obama mandate requiring employers, including those with religious affiliations, to provide contraceptive coverage that includes abortion-inducing drugs is an example of left-liberal arrogance and over-reach. The efforts by Chicago’s Mayor Rahm Emanual and a handful of other Democratic officeholders in various liberal jurisdictions to use zoning laws against Chick-fil-A is now being seen as part of the ongoing “attack on religious liberty.” The anti-gay bigots are lined up at Chick-fil-A, but so are large numbers of conservative leaners who don’t want liberal government dictating what people can say and think (lost in all this, of course, is the fact that Chick-fil-A, as a corporation, gives millions of dollars to anti-gay organizations).

The efforts by just a handful of our erstwhile friends (or, less charitably, pandering politicians), has cost us dearly and could very well undermine efforts in Maryland, Minnesota and elsewhere to fight anti-gay-marriage initiatives. We know who are enemies are; but with friends like these, we could be sunk.

Furthermore. Josh Barro writes in the Boston Globe How Boston Mayor Tom Menino turned bullies into martyrs with his Chick-fil-A stance. Along with Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee, Washington Mayor Vincent Gray, and New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn:

these city officials changed the subject, and not in a good way for advocates of gay marriage. Chick-fil-A no longer has to answer for its CEO’s position on gay marriage and its owners’ support of organizations that oppose gay rights. Instead, the company is on the much more comfortable ground of simply defending its CEO’s right to express a constitutionally protected opinion without reprisal from the government.