Posted on 06/03/2003 8:39:38 AM PDT by sofloridian
State GOP Chair to Attend Gay Republican Dinner
State GOP Chairwoman Carole Jean Jordan is scheduled to eat dinner tonight with the gay Broward Log Cabin Club, wading into the debate on how much influence gays and lesbians should have in the Republican Party.
"It's a big step for her to come to our dinner," said Andy Eddy, spokesman for the club.
The Broward County branch of the national Log Cabin Republicans was the first chapter approved by the state party four years ago. A Tampa chapter was approved later.
"At first it was a shock to the party, but it isn't any more," Eddy said. "The shock is over."
Other Republicans are not so sure.
The Log Cabin Club's views are "basically contrary to our views as Republicans and as stated in the Republican platform," said Margaret Hostetter, a Republican activist who is outspoken in her opposition to gay rights.
The Log Cabin supports both the inclusion of sexual orientation in civil rights laws and same-sex marriage, two positions that the national Republican platform rejects. The 2000 national Republican platform states that the GOP opposes the "distortion" of civil rights laws to cover sexual orientation and endorses the Defense of Marriage Act to prevent states from being forced to recognize same-sex unions.
Jordan could not be reached for comment. Geoffrey Becker, the state party's executive director, said she has made it her habit to meet with any Republican.
"The chairman meets with all types of people, not necessarily only those who reflect her views," Becker said. "It's part of expanding our party." ...
It's a discussion that has been going on in the national party since a meeting in early May between White House aides and 200 members of various Log Cabin chapters from across the country. Socially conservative Republicans protested and have threatened to sit on their hands in next year's presidential election unless President Bush puts some distance between himself and gay activists.
Among those who are upset is Ken Connor, president of the Washington-based Family Research Council.
Connor wrote to council members in May that White House staffers' "incessant pandering to the homosexual lobby is deeply troubling. If the GOP does not stand for the sanctity of marriage, then traditional-values voters have little reason to give the party their loyalty." ...
(Excerpt) Read more at sun-sentinel.com ...
Just how many votes will the Log Cabin Gays get you in Broward County? 100, more or less?
How many votes do you lose by being seen as a gay agenda supporter in Broward County? 500, more or less?
In the end, cultural disputes and widespread dismay over the country’s moral state overshadowed the economic optimism that was expected to put Al Gore in the White House, allowing Bush to eke out a victory.
All this goes to confirm that, to borrow a title from an earlier First Things article, "It’s the Culture, Stupid" (April 1994).
As political scientist Walter Dean Burnham has suggested, such complex party coalitions are best described by geological metaphors. Today the ancient ethnoreligious bedrock of vote choice has been eroded by rising tides of disengagement, while simultaneously being fractured by the upheavals of cultural politics. Indeed, the religious formations we saw in 2000 have been developing for some time and have now solidified. This fact has vital ramifications for governance. In the future Republicans will remain solicitous of traditionalists, and evangelical traditionalists in particular, while Democrats will privilege the concerns of religious minorities, secularists, and modernists. Regardless of well-meaning admonitions to both parties to "move to the center," ignoring such large core constituencies would be political suicide.
What is needed is "bridging" social capital: activity that reaches beyond the religious group itself to work with others on causes that involve "loving thy neighbor," but are not purely sectarian in nature. Traditionalist Protestants and Roman Catholics are remarkably generous in donating their time and energy to worthy causes: we find (as Putnam did) that they are much more engaged on the whole than religious liberals or secular people. But they are also more likely to volunteer in ways that bond them with one another, serving the needs of people within the community of faith, rather than connect to the needs of others beyond the fold. In this respect, the declining number of mainline Protestants is particularly disturbing, for this group
Republicans Confident Gay Rights Issue Will Hurt DeanRichard White (search), a Republican state senator from Mississippi, said any candidate talking about gay rights might as well not even visit his state.
"The people down here, they are not going to put up with that kind of stuff," White said. "We're not prepared for all that in Mississippi or anywhere else in the southern states."
Mary Cheney ducks out of GOP gay group
Mary Cheney ducks out of GOP gay group Mary Cheney, the lesbian daughter of U.S. vice president Dick Cheney, has resigned from the board of the Republican Unity Coalition slightly more than one year after taking on the largely honorary post with the gay-straight political alliance.
Cheney, who once marketed beer to the gay and lesbian community as an employee of the Coors Brewing Co. of Golden, Colo., has been one of the few key gay rights supporters with close ties to the White House.
A source close to the Cheney family said Mary Cheney's resignation from RUC will allow her to pursue business interests in her home state of Colorado, where she lives with her partner, Heather Poe. But some gay activists suggest that there may be more behind the decision, since it comes on the heels of protests from the religious right regarding pro-gay comments by GOP chairman Marc Racicot. "Leaders of the extreme right are demanding that the GOP back away from any association with the gay community," said David Smith, a spokesman for the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, D.C., gay rights group. "The Right is calling into question what little outreach the party had to gay voters at the crossroads of an election season. While I can't speculate on the reasons for her decision, Mary Cheney's departure definitely comes at an interesting time."
Poll: Pennsylvanians behind Santorum in gay issue
The vast majority of the state's voters -- 75 percent -- said Santorum should not resign as Senate Republican Conference chairman, while 58 percent said homosexuality was morally wrong, the Quinnipiac University poll said. [CNN leaves out the Quinnipiac also says ONLY 27% finds the behavior Acceptable]
If the Supreme Court says that you have the right to consensual (gay) sex within your home, then you have the right to bigamy, you have the right to polygamy, you have the right to incest, you have the right to adultery."
Still, 55 percent approved of the senator with 33 percent disapproving of his performance and 12 percent undecided.
Queer . . . (yes, that was a pun)
Your insinuation that those who oppose the treatment of homosexuality as a normal and acceptable lifestyle are haters is a red herring and illogical to boot. It reeks of a standard liberal ploy, for example, accusing a person opposing affirmative action of being a racist. Whether one relies on the numerous Biblical injunctions against homosexuality (q.v. Romans 1:26-27) or on the historical evidence of the societal decay that follows widespread sexual license (ancient Rome and Greece), there are numerous, sound reasons to oppose the movement to tolerate and even welcome sodomy. There are many reasons to support laws that prohibit DWI. Are Mothers Against Drunk Driving and similar anti-DWI advocacy groups made up of haters of alcoholics or drug abusers? Jews amd Muslims dislike Christian proselytizers recruiting members from their respective faith communities. Does that make them anti-Christian bigots?
Your statement that "passing judgement in this case is best left to God" is a paraphrase of the Sermon on the Mount, specifically Luke 6:37, "Judge not, and ye shall not be judges." Your paraphrase is taken out of the context of the sermon, which was based on the Pharisees, who judged unrighteously, using human and not divine standards. In other places in the Bible, unrighteous or uninformed judgement is condemned. Yet these admonitions do not preclude judgement based on righteous principles. "Do ye not know that the saints shall judge the world? and if the world shall be judged by you, are ye unworthy to judge the smallest matters?" (I Corinthians 6:2) Homosexuality, lesbianism, and indeed all sex outside of monogamous, heterosexual marriage, are frequently condemned in both the Old and the New Testament. To pass judgement on an unreprentant sexual sinner is not only permitted by Scripture, but is a good and necessary consequence of adhering to Biblical principles.
Whether or not embracing homosexuals in the GOP is sound politicial strategy may be debated. However, the immorality and destructiveness of permissiveness in this matter cannot, based on both Biblical injunction and human experience.
I do not accept it as normal behavior. I think you miss the point of compassion for the "sinner but not the sin". Sort of like "he who without sin cast the first stone".Your statement that "passing judgment in this case is best left to God"
It just my humility before God and all that I'am not perfect. I will accept responsibility my sins and know that I'am forgiven. I'am not worthy to condemn my fellow man for sins for which they must be judged by God. To do otherwise I would have to assume the role of God, last I checked I was not divine nor a saint.
As for homosexual acts, I find it repulsive. What should I do? kill them, stone them? last I checked that is a sin within itself. I have to be honest and call the acts reprehensible. I have to be like Jesus love then in spite of themselves and hope someday they will find Christ.
Hopefully, this thing will subside by then, and we will move on to serious threats to our country, like Muslim terrorists.
NoD, been busy with the NC GOP convention this past weekend, and partially shut off from computer access. Hopefully I can drive some more scoreboard watching on GOP gains later this month! Today we have the NJ primaries, of course, with RINOs ready to be taken out, and did you see the Minnesota threads, with some senate DFLers possibly caucusing with the GOP?
That's an interesting question, but Republican strategists ask themselves a different question:
How do we attract moderate voters without alienating social conservative?
The Broward County chapter of Log Cabin Republicans has members from South Florida, not just Broward County. South Florida has about 5 million people, but let’s be conservative and assume 4 million people. Let’s assume that at least 1 million of those are minors, so we only have 3 million potential voters. Let’s assume that half of the adults don’t vote, we only have 1.5 million voters. Let’s assume that 5% of those voters are gay, (although gays are overrepresented here), so we have at least 75,000 gay voters. Assuming that only 25% vote Republican, we have almost 19,000 votes.
Furthermore, the reason the Republican Party is trying to project a softer image on gays is to attract the swing voters; take my wife, for example, a moderate voter who voted for Clinton and GW Bush. She will never vote for a Republican candidate perceived to be mean to gays, such as Dole was portrayed in the media after returning a contribution from the Log Cabin Republicans.
Clearly, no human being can condemn another to hell for their sins; this is the sole prerogative of God. Despite this dividing line, parents are given clear resposibility in teaching and enforcing Biblical principles in the family (q.v. Proverbs 22:6 on teaching a child and Proverbs 13:24 on discipline). The civil magistrate is also enjoined to follow Biblical principles. "And I charged your judges at that time, saying, Hear the causes between your brethren, and judge righteously between every man and his brother, and the stranger that is with him." (Deut. 1:16). The church is also to discipline its members that are known sinners. In I Corinthians 5, the apostle Paul admonishes the leaders of that church to expel known fornictors, covetous, idolators, et. al. "Therefore put away from among yourselves that wicked person." (I Cor. 5:13) Nor are Biblical principles restricted to the spheres of family, civil government, and church government. Jesus's statement that if we are to love Him we must keep His commandments does not make exception in the workplace or the marketplace.
When American Christians insisted on righteous behavior on the part of their civil, church, and cultural leaders, this nation was a city on a hill, a nation that, to paraphrase de Tocqueville, was great because it was good. When American Christians retreat from their duties as parents, citizens, church members, and members of society, moral chaos and societal breakdown ensue.
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