GOP at odds over gay marriage

[kayell]

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/03/04/gop_at_odds_over_gay_marriage/

PRESIDENT BUSH picked a fight over gay marriage, and it looks like he will get a good one -- from gay Republicans. The Log Cabin Republicans, the largest gay Republican advocacy organization in the country, is laying the groundwork for a major campaign across the country to challenge the president's call for a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages.

"This is our line in the sand," says Patrick Guerriero, executive director of the Republican group. "We were forced by a sense of history and responsibility to respond immediately and harshly. Our membership demanded it, and our integrity demanded it."

The campaign, scheduled for launch later this month, is targeted at states such as Ohio, Florida, West Virginia, Wisconsin, New Hampshire, and New Mexico. One television commercial will reportedly feature Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney recently said he supports Bush's call for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriages. But in 2000, Cheney, the father of a gay daughter, had a different outlook.

"The fact of the matter is we live in a free society, and freedom means freedom for everybody," Cheney said in a debate against Connecticut Senator Joseph Lieberman, who was Al Gore's vice presidential running mate in the 2000 campaign. "And I think that means that people should be free to enter into any kind of relationship they want to enter into. It's really no one else's business in terms of trying to regulate or prohibit behavior in that regard." Asked specifically "whether or not there ought to be some kind of official sanction" of such relationships, Cheney said, "I don't think there should necessarily be a federal policy in this area."

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[DRoseDARs]

1. Wha...?

"...The Log Cabin Republicans, the largest gay Republican advocacy organization in the country..."

You mean there's more than one? :wow:

Huh, imagine that. :shrug:

[lcooksey]

2. Mary Cheney started a competing organization

The Republican Unity Coalition, http://www.republicanunity.com/. I don't remember what Bush's objection to the Log Cabin Republicans was, but he wouldn't meet with them during the 2000 campaign. Instead he met with 12 individual gay Republicans. I didn't read it yet, but the Republican Unity website has an interview with all 12 of them on 1 March to get their opinions on Bush endorsing the FMA. They're clearly not happy.

So now Bush and Cheney have TWO gay Republican groups fighting them. :)

[cboy4]

3. Are they for real?

from their website:

"Like President Bush, we are uniters, not dividers, and need your help to succeed---and we will succeed."

Prez Bush is a uniter, not a divider? HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHA

[Occulus]

12. But he IS a uniter.

He's uniting the country and the world against him.

[David__77]

13. Bush didn't meet with Log Cabin...

Log Cabin's leaders strongly supported McCain, sensing that he opposed the fundamentalist wing. Bush wouldn't associate with them, but wanted it both ways so a group of patsies was set up among gay Republicans to make him look "moderate."

[mac56]

4. Ridiculous.

From other posts:

"Chickens For Colonel Sanders"
"Retarded Death Row Inmates For Bush"

[Crachet2004]

5. I wonder how many gay republicans...

We are talking about here? It isn't hard to imagine they would be well organized and financed, but how many could there be? Are there any estimates?

And of course we all hope GOP willingness to tamper with the Constitution, to pursue an agenda of hate, will blow up in their faces!

Coupled with Orrin Hatch's 'Arnold Amendment' and the assault 'Patriot' represents on the Constitution, a strong case can be made that Republicans don't like living under the US Constitution!!! That is the collar I would like to hang around their necks!

[SoDesuKa]

6. Gays and Privacy

Those fascist right wingers who happen to be gay are more at home in the Republican party than in the Democratic party. They are caught in a bind when the Republican leader denounces their lifestyle as immoral. Unfortunately, it's not enough to make them question their allegiance to the Republican party.

[KC21304]

8. Oh yes it is. Many, many of them are.

[KC21304]

7. When Bush made the amendment statement,

I heard one gay Republican say there were over a million of them.

[Crachet2004]

11. Wowee! That is a big number!

Hopefully a lot smaller, in light of recent developements!

These are all good comments. You know, it has always amazed me how many working people vote GOP too.

I know guys who have voted GOP for over 30 years (and I have argued with them for just as long) who carry a lunch pail to work every day. But you know, this time I am gratified to find many of them finally smartening up! When people like that turn, they turn with a vengeance! They believed those lies all that time, and now they feel betrayed.

Wait till gas breaks three bucks a gallon! They 'assumed' Iraq meant cheap gas! And many of them have those big, 4-wheel drive trucks! One guy I know just bought a brand new one-34,000 dollars! hahaha. I told him that I would give him 100 bucks for it this fall, when he can't afford to put it on the road. hahahaha. I love it! I have no mercy, I rub it in!

I think that the sense of betrayal, on many fronts, among many groups, is what will finally seal the Bushwhackers fate! There is enough here to piss-off almost everyone!

[kayell]

9. Sad statistics

According to exit polls after the 2000 election, 25% of voters who identified as gay voted for *. Don't ask me to explain this, I don't think I know a single gay person who did, but then I tend to select my friends in part by their being more intelligent than the average rock.

I understand that there are virtually NO lesbians in the LCR. This may connect to the thread about white males being easily duped.

[Vladimir]

10. Good point

about the lesbians. I suspect another factor is that to be a gay republican you have to have enough money to make the discrimination and persecution unimportant. And more men are likely to have the resources for that than women.

V

[wryter2000]

14. Interesting analysis

Welcome to DU, Vladimir :hi:

[Vladimir]

15. thanks

:hi:

[kayell]

16. I agree that finances are more likely the reason

I was just in a snarky mood. Lesbians tend to have an even lower income level than women over all, and household income of course is also lower. Combine that with the gender voting divide. We have very little reason to support a republican regime. (I can't imagine how Mary Cheney justifys it)

On one hand, I feel a bit sorry for the LCR. Their hopes and dreams of being included have been crushed. On the other hand, they willingly fooled themselves into believing that a party devoted to promoting the advantaged over the disadvantaged would make an exception for them.

[Vladimir]

17. Indeed

There is a lot to be said about the way in which the right gets the poor white male to vote time and again against his interests, but that's a topic to itself...

V