Gay marriage prominent at [CA] GOP convention

[question everything]

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2004/02/22/news/state/2_21_0419_08_15.txt

BURLINGAME -- President Bush and other Republicans will benefit from a political backlash against San Francisco's same-sex marriage experiment, according to activists attending the state GOP convention Saturday.

(snip)

"I think it helps with our supporters," said Ed Rollins, a strategist for U.S. Senate candidate Bill Jones. "The longer it goes on, and no offense to you folks from San Francisco ... it just makes you look like you're more and more out of touch with the rest of the state and certainly the country."

But in speeches throughout the day and at appearances by the four candidates hoping to challenge Sen. Barbara Boxer this fall, California Republicans also tried to walk a fine line between appealing to their conservative base and avoiding the accusations of intolerance that have plagued the party in recent years. Many party leaders said they would be willing to support a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage if San Francisco's actions are not struck down in court.

(snip)


But the gathering was also marked by debate over illegal immigration, an issue that caused major problems for the party after the passage of Proposition 187, a Republican-backed measure that would have denied essential services to illegal immigrants.

(snip)

Associated Press Writer Michael R. Blood contributed to this story.

[nadinbrzezinski]

1. I predict that if the Gay issue is put where it shoudl

civil rights, the GOP will indeed see a backlash, for being on the wrong side of history AGAIN.

[robertarctor]

2. Cluephone to clueless 'Pubbies:

This is California, not Mississippi. While there may be a number of people in this state who will be energized by the GOP trotting out its boilerplate gay-bashing agenda, there is a larger number of people who will be pissed off by it. QED.

[JoFerret]

4. Didn't work in 1992

and won't work now. This issue is like the proverbial toothpaste. It is out of the open and has a life of its own. Kerry can innoculate himself by saying that his position is the same as the Vice-President's and the more the right wing zealots screech the more out of touch and downright weird they will seem. After all - we now have middle aged couples who are pillars of society and together for decades as the public face and not the selected TV-newsworthy drag queens and bare-breasted leather dykes on parade so beloved of the r/w hate machine.

[mac2]

3. Distraction...SEX and religion..

With Repubs the distraction to address real problems are sex and religion. Neither give us solutions to the present day problems.