Republican Politicians: Reluctant Homophobes?
Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann: Dueling Homophobes |
There are certainly major homophobic politicians at the forefront of the Republican Party. In a prior post ["The Legacy of Homophobia," see Related Posts, below] I wrote about the vitriolic attacks on homosexuals by former Presidential hopefuls Rick Santorum and Michele Bachmann, which are clearly based on hatred from the heart. Equally obvious is that the Tea Party wing requires Republicans to swear fealty to the belief marriage consists solely of a union between one man and one woman, and is also largely homophobic on all gay issues [as to this see the recent book Dr. Christopher Parker and Dr. Matt Barreto "Change They Can't Believe In"].
But here’s the thing: any sentient
human being is now aware the gay rights battles have an obvious conclusion, and
that conclusion is that gays will end up both socially and as a matter of law
being treated the same as everyone else.
This result will take a few more years and a Supreme Court decision or
two, but it’s now inevitable. Republican
politicians are no dummies. They see
this too, and moreover, the vast majority of them don’t find the idea discomforting
or objectionable in any way. Most
Republicans have gay family members, friends, supporters, neighbors, etc., and
these are people they value and love.
They also recognize that society is greatly in favor of gay rights these
days, and the numbers are getting stronger each month for that position. How much more uncomfortable must it be for
Republican politicians who are themselves closeted gays—that would be a life on
an unsteady tightrope.
But Republicans are locked
into an unfortunate national stance that gays should not be allowed to get
legally married. This is a major
political disadvantage, and loses them votes in election after election as many
Republicans entering the voting booths cannot stomach voting for someone who
will keep a beloved friend/relative from being able to enjoy rights straight
Americans would be aghast to lose. Polls
show this to be true and the candidates know it. Even worse they are forced to take a public
homophobic stance that they not only don’t believe in, but know to be
wrong. This makes it hard for the
candidates to come home and face their loved ones, who’ve watched their
hypocrisy on TV, shaking their heads in disgust. It’s embarrassing. It’s wrong
under any definition of the word.
Rob and Will Portman |
Why don’t most Republicans
do the same? If the vast majority of
those running for office all were either in favor of gay marriage or at least noncommittal
on the subject the issue wouldn’t be a big deal in most elections outside of
very conservative districts or states.
As tempting and commonsensical
as that sounds, it isn’t happening, at least not yet. The reason is that the Tea Party won’t stand
for it, and the Tea Party is famous for not compromising even when the battle
is lost and when the lack of compromise leads to devastating political
consequences. Their purity is admirable;
their tactic is known; the end result is chaos.
Any moderate Republican who doesn’t convert to the Tea Party line is
going to face a Tea Party opponent in the next nominating cycle, and even the
strongest of Republicans can see his/her political career collapse
immediately. Just ask the amazing former
Senator from Indiana, the wonderful Richard Lugar, a voice of calm and sanity
in the Republican party for decades (36 years in the Senate!), who lost the 2012
nomination for re-election to a Tea Partier (who got 61% of the primary vote
vs. 39 % for Lugar) because Lugar’s stances were not closely aligned with Tea
Party dictates. As a consequence in the
Indiana Senate race the Tea Party candidate, Richard Mourdock went on to lose
to the Democratic candidate, in large part because of Mourdock’s unfortunate
remark that a child of rape was still a “gift from God,” so that the rape
victim should be forced to have the rapist’s baby.
So now we come to the
Chaneys. Gay marriage has put them all over
the news.
Former Vice President Dick
Cheney, whose views I typically despise, has always had my admiration for
refusing to condemn gay marriage. His
daughter Mary is gay, and last year married her partner Heather Poe; they have
two children. The trouble arises from
the recent decision of the older Cheney daughter, Liz, to move back to Wyoming
and run for the Senate, at which point she promptly espoused all the most
conservative Tea Party positions, including opposition to gay marriage. Her family was astounded, and although the
parents have been non-committal (trying vainly to balance support for Liz’s
candidacy with their love for Mary and Heather), the sisters are battling on
Facebook. Here is Heather’s post.
Cheneys: Mary, Dick, and Liz |
[CLICK TO ENLARGE] |
Mary then unleashed her true feelings about her sister's
beliefs. As for Heather’s post she
chimed in with "Couldn't have said it better myself." She then added,
"Liz - this isn't just an issue on which we disagree—you're just wrong—and
on the wrong side of history."
That sums it up nicely. My guess is that Liz Cheney doesn’t really find much wrong with gay marriage, and particularly not Mary and Heather’s marriage. But she’s running for office in a very conservative state, so—history or not, hypocrisy or not, love of sister or not—she must be a reluctant homophobe if she wants to have any chance of being the next United States Senator from Wyoming. Even worse her sister is right: Liz is on the wrong side of history, and that will be a major embarrassment for her as she ages and gays become a ho-hum issue. Certainly her five children, when they grow up, will be much ashamed by what their mother did when this issue arose and she chose to go down the path of homophobia, alienating her only sister and leaving a legacy of hate for them to deal with.
---------------------------------------------------
Related
Posts:
“Homosexuality: The
Iceberg Theory,” April 25, 2010
“How I Lost a Gay Marriage Debate,” April 29, 2010
“How I Lost a Gay Marriage Debate,” April 29, 2010
“How To Tell if You’re
Gay,” August 31, 2010
“How To Change Gay People
Into Straight People,” September 20, 2010
"How Many
Homosexuals Are There in the World?" November 8, 2010
"Choose To Be Gay, Choose To Be Straight," January 25, 2011
"The Homosexual Agenda To Conquer the World," February 8, 2011
"Coming Out: How To Tell People You're Gay," March 27, 2011
"The Legacy of Homophobia," August 2, 2011
"Choose To Be Gay, Choose To Be Straight," January 25, 2011
"The Homosexual Agenda To Conquer the World," February 8, 2011
"Coming Out: How To Tell People You're Gay," March 27, 2011
"The Legacy of Homophobia," August 2, 2011
"Going Undercover at
an Ex-Gay Meeting," September 19, 2011
"The Presumption of
Heterosexuality and the Invisible Homosexual," October 2, 2011
"Gay Bashers,
Homophobes, and Me," January 27, 2012
“Straight People: Thanks From the LGBT
Community,” November 20, 2012
“The Words ‘Queer’ and ‘Gay” in the 21st Century,” May 5, 2013
“A Homophobic Organization Throws in the Towel: Goodbye to Exodus International,” June 21, 2013
“Gay Marriage, the Supreme Court, and the Future,” June 26, 2013
“Disowning Your Gay Children,” October 9, 2013
“Is It Legal To Discriminate Against Gay People?” March 19, 2014
“A Gay Hoosier Lawyer Looks at Indiana’s RFRA: The Religious Bigot Protection Act,” March 30, 2015; http://douglaswhaley.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-gay-hoosier-lawyer-looks-at-indianas.html
“The Words ‘Queer’ and ‘Gay” in the 21st Century,” May 5, 2013
“A Homophobic Organization Throws in the Towel: Goodbye to Exodus International,” June 21, 2013
“Gay Marriage, the Supreme Court, and the Future,” June 26, 2013
“Disowning Your Gay Children,” October 9, 2013
“Is It Legal To Discriminate Against Gay People?” March 19, 2014
“A Gay Hoosier Lawyer Looks at Indiana’s RFRA: The Religious Bigot Protection Act,” March 30, 2015; http://douglaswhaley.blogspot.com/2015/03/a-gay-hoosier-lawyer-looks-at-indianas.html
“A Guide to the Best of My Blog,” April 29, 2013
Comments
Post a Comment