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Gay Marriage Will Destroy the GOP
Politico Magazine ^ | May 28, 2014 | David Lampo

Posted on 05/30/2014 1:41:37 AM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet

If conservatives don’t embrace the inevitable, they'll become irrelevant.

Since last year, the progress toward marriage equality has been nothing less than stunning. Nearly a year ago, the Supreme Court granted full federal recognition of married same-sex couples in declaring the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional. In rapid succession since then, federal judges in 13 states have overturned their state’s respective bans on same sex unions. The latest was last week in Pennsylvania, when Judge John E. Jones III, a G. W. Bush appointee, overturned the ban, writing, “We are a better people than what these laws represent.” Because Republican Gov. Tom Corbett has declined to appeal the judge’s decision, Pennsylvania is now the 19th state to legalize same-sex marriage.

Federal judges have ruled against the bans as diverse as Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia. Gay marriage isn’t just for blue states anymore.

One of the most eloquent statements against the bans was issued earlier this month by Arkansas federal judge Chris Piazza, who argued that state’s ban violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. “Procreation is not a prerequisite in Arkansas for a marriage license,” he said. “Opposite-sex couples may choose not to have children or they may be infertile, and certainly we are beyond trying to protect the gene pool. A marriage license is a civil document and is not, nor can it be, based upon any particular faith. Same-sex couples are a morally disliked minority and the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages is driven by animus rather than a rational basis. This violates the U.S. Constitution.”

These cases, and the others that will likely follow, can lead to just one thing: another historic case about gay marriage before the Supreme Court, one that could establish a constitutional right to marriage equality, something few legal experts thought would happen so soon after last year’s DOMA case.

Public opinion on this issue is marching forward as well. According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, 59 percent of Americans now support gay marriage. Only a third opposes it, nearly the reverse of the same poll 10 years ago. Forty percent of Republicans support it, and nearly 60 percent of Republicans between the ages of 18 and 29. Even 51 percent of white evangelicals under 35 support it, according to the Public Religion Research Institute.

And yet the Christian Right, or at least most of its self-proclaimed leaders, just won’t let it go. In mid-May, a group of them called the Conservative Action Project met outside Washington, D.C., to plot their next moves and devise their agenda to push back against the Republican leadership in Congress, whom they see as too soft on Obama and his agenda. Mainstream business groups like the Chamber of Commerce, which is keen to see a GOP takeover of the Senate after missed opportunities in 2010 and 2012, are siding with the leadership.

Although some of the attendees do not share the Conservative Action Project’s anti-gay agenda, most of them do. At the mid-May meeting, they reaffirmed their explicit opposition to same-sex marriage along with opposition to abortion and illegal immigration reform. Tony Perkins, head of the anti-gay Family Research Council, led a panel about restoring the “traditional family” as a Republican Party priority, as if almost universal opposition to gay rights has not been the party’s priority for several decades.

Polling consistently shows that independents, younger voters and women—all of whom used to routinely vote Republican in presidential contests—are now more often than not reliable Democrat voters. They are also pro-gay rights and same-sex marriage, especially younger voters. Unless Republicans begin to win some of them back with policies of social tolerance, they will simply no longer be in contention in presidential elections. Slavish devotion to right-wing social policies is the road to oblivion on the national stage.

So it’s time to stop letting the anti-gay tail wag the Republican dog. The Christian Right spokesmen’s pious pleas for tolerance for their anti-gay religious convictions will fall on deaf ears (and should) as long as they continue their own intolerance for those who practice different faiths or have different sexual orientations than they do.

Ending their tight grip on the party’s social agenda, and its 2016 platform, must be the top priority of those who wish to bring the Republican Party into the 21st century and make it appeal to more than just old white men.


TOPICS: Issues; Parties
KEYWORDS: dnctalkingpoints; gaymarriage; homosexualagenda; homosexualmarriage; samesexmarriage
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Well, If the Rs become Ds (more than they already are) on this issue, what use are they? Maybe they’ll win back some pro-gay votes, but they will lose a lot of others.

Maybe Christian conservatives will be totally disenfranchised, as far as having a party to vote for, or maybe there will be a successful third-party movement.

Whichever, I’d rather be right than be Preident, as somebody once said.


41 posted on 05/30/2014 7:15:19 AM PDT by chesley
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

There was not a single atom of original thought in this smug, condescending, self-righteous spew. A pig slop bucket would be less disgusting. F for Failure.


42 posted on 05/30/2014 8:13:09 AM PDT by darkangel82
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

So tell me again, what’s the difference between Log Cabin “Republicans” and Democrats, notably the ones who boo God at their convention? David Lampo obeisantly hoists the rainbow flag, shakes his tiny fist in God’s face and thinks he’s big stuff. And Democrats who’d like the Caligula Wing of the GOP to turn the Party into a pallid echo of themselves cheer.


43 posted on 05/30/2014 8:34:58 AM PDT by rhema ("Break the conventions; keep the commandments." -- G. K. Chesterton)
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To: Jumper

How would Muslims and gay churches spell marriage?


44 posted on 05/30/2014 9:04:08 AM PDT by ansel12 ((Ted Cruz and Mike Lee-both of whom sit on the Senate Judiciary Comm as Ginsberg's importance fades)
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To: 2ndDivisionVet

Yeah, “become a godless Democrat or you have no future.”

Go pound sand, or your nearest bath house, faggot!


45 posted on 05/30/2014 9:28:53 AM PDT by fwdude ( You cannot compromise with that which you must defeat.)
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To: Westbrook

“Gay marriage will destroy the United States.”

No doubt about that as it is only a matter of time and Democrats and liberal Republicans are hastening the ultimate Destruction.

Our only option is to work harder, demand unequivocal condemnation of gay marriage by all GOP candidates and judicial appointments.

Fight gay marriage in the courts up until the point of impeaching any judge that decides in favor of gay marriage.

Stand up for States’ Rights in every state where a Federal Judge has imposed gay marriage and demand national unity and impose national standards upon those states where the legislatures or voters have forced gay marriage on the people.


46 posted on 05/30/2014 10:07:00 AM PDT by Oliviaforever
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To: Oliviaforever

Problem is, about half of the population now thinks that the sick and perverse practices of homosexuals should not only be normalized and recognized by civil authorities as legitimate basis for marriage, but must be “celebrated” by the rest of the population, even to the point of excluding from professional positions those who disagree with the caprophage, urolagnia, fudge-packing, carpet-munching agenda.

The sodomites were able to do this because they have unlimited access to media, entertainment, academia, corporate board rooms, and the culture at large. Now, because of the endless indoctrination over the last 30 years through these cultural institutions, they clearly have the upper hand.

With about half the people on their side nationwide, and that number growing daily, they are now able to bring to bear the institution of government. Soon, there won’t be even one state in the Union that has not succumbed to the agenda of Sodom.

Meanwhile, we have been marginalized and have very limited access to any of these institutions.

And with Big Government coming down on us now, it is no longer just a cultural matter but a legal one if you disagree with the agenda of Sodom.

We will have to start where the Sodomites started, at the bottom of the heap, because that’s where we have been relegated by the rest of our cultural and governmental institutions.


47 posted on 05/30/2014 10:56:43 AM PDT by Westbrook (Children do not divide your love, they multiply it.)
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To: xzins

Nature, no difference in pair B. Pair A by natural biological qualification, will produce offspring. Pair B will cause, by nature, unintended tearing of the anal cavity with each encounter, rendering Pair A the only one’s able to properly excrete at age 60.


48 posted on 05/30/2014 11:02:53 AM PDT by Jumper
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