Gay Republicans – an oxymoron?

[kweerwolf]

n 1996, Republican presidential candidate Bob Dole returned a $1,000 political contribution check to the Log Cabin Republicans, issuing a statement that said, in part, the gay Republican organization’s support of legal recognition of same-sex marriage “is a special-rights platform that Senator Dole simply does not support.” And this was the gay conservative organization’s first foray into national politics after establishing their own centralized nationwide organization.

In the next general election in 2000, Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush refused to meet with leaders of the Log Cabin organization, and instead chose to meet with a dozen gay and lesbian Republicans, including former Congressmember Steve Gunderson, who had criticized Dole for returning the check. In exit polls, 4 million voters self-identified as gay or lesbian. Somewhere between a quarter and a third of those individuals voted for Bush.

In 2004, President Bush’s victory is credited to strategically placing the issue of same-sex marriage on several key state ballots (Missouri, New Mexico and Ohio, to name a few), thus drawing out a conservative base. Bush also supports a constitutional amendment defining marriage as solely the union of one man and one woman. In what was a first for the national Log Cabin Republicans, the organization chose to withhold its endorsement of President Bush, the Republican candidate.

<snip>

This dual rejection encountered – as a homosexual in the Republican Party and as a Republican in the gay community – is what Angela D. Dillard, a professor of history and politics at the Gallatin School at New York University, calls “double marginalization” in her book Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner Now? Multicultural Conservatism in America. Dillard offers, as she says, “a comparative analysis of conservatism which today cuts across the boundaries of sex, race, ethnicity, gender and sexuality.” The purpose of the book, argues Dillard, is to challenge the very notion of the conservative party belonging only to middle- and upper-class heterosexual white men.

http://www.gaylesbiantimes.com/?id=6206

[skipos]

1. Believe it or not 25% of voting gays voted for Bush in 04 .

It is hard for me to imagine supporting a party that, for the most part, thinks I am going to burn in hell.

[baldguy]

2. Talk about not voting for your best interests!

Makes me want to walk up to them and scream "THESE PEOPLE WANT TO KILL YOU!!!!!"

[kweerwolf]

5. Seems to me that being gay and Republican ...

... is a bit like being a willing participant in one's own rape.

I'm not sure if "gay Republicans" are an oxymoron or just your plain, everyday moron.

[Mend]

7. a gay couple we are friends with always vote puke...

it seems as though it is one single way they can fit in with the "superior" group, because they think repukes are the richer, smarter, cooler people. They drink a lot and always seem to be in some pain. There seems to be some self-loathing present. Obviously we don't talk politics with them...

[bigscott]

18. not only thinks you are going to burn in hell

but also is working hard to get you going on your way there. I would say it amazes me but it does not anymore - pretty sad actually

[applegrove]

3. No. The whole thing about hating gays if for the stupid voting public.

Just as wingnut christianity is. The neocons don't think Americans are smart enough to deserve the "real information". No conflict whatsoever. They are big fat liars and the people at the top of the cluster ****, be they gay or anything else, know it is not personal. They know it is only about power & control. They love tribalism and the more tribalism the better - because democracies only work well when tribalism is reduced. So to make a democracy work badly - you go tribal. Then you rule through the "leaders of the tribes you have chosen" like black megachurch millionaires as opposed to the NAACP.

Called indirect rule and how the British had an empire for 200 years.

[Canuckistanian]

4. The "chickens for Col. Saunders" analogy is apt

These Log Cabin Republicans are either very sick or very deluded.

[ButtScratchinMike]

12. Sick and deluded

Log Cabins always make me wonder if there are parallel organizations of Nazi Jews or black Klansmen

[Canuckistanian]

15. Or Jews for Jesus

Actually, come to think of it, Jesus was a Jew and never renounced Judaism himself.

[mitchtv]

6. Try' Oxymoran'

[HillDem]

8. Good one

[whalerider55]

9. well...

35% of the country would still watch * bite the head off a live chicken and tell their kids he musta been hungry.

money is money; my best guess is that the gays who vote for * look a lot like the moneyed, elitist, capitalists who vote for shrub. they figure who they f*ck is their own business, and that having the money to f*ck who they want is a lot more important. my guess is that they live in and among the top 10% of the greedy bastards who profited from the rape of the treasury under shrub.

their allegiance is to their own perceived self-interest; i.e. keeping as much of their loot as possible. morality, ethics, and sexual orientation don't matter a damn. money makes the world go round.


whalerider

who thinks it doesn't matter whether you are gay, white, black, abled or disabled. you can still be a selfish asshole

[BrklynLiberal]

10. Just plain morons...

Anyone who could be THAT much against their own self-interest has to be mentally deficient, very self-loathing or into self-abuse in some very sick way.

[Meldread]

11. Still, I wonder if they are useful...

Obvious self-loathing and not voting in your best interests aside... I wonder if they are useful in the long run? If the "Gay Right" can be molded into something that will actually stand up to the Republicans when they demonize us... then I could see some usefulness in them.

Elections are getting closer and closer these days. In hotly contested races, gays could swing the vote one way or another. It could pay to have some bargaining power on both sides. They could be our version of a Trojan Horse. It is always much harder to defeat an enemy when it is already within your walls, and gays certainly seem to be in high places in the Republican Party.

After all, think of it this way. In a hotly contested race, a Republican might appeal to LGBT Voters to try and erode into his Democratic opponents perceived base, much like Bush has attempted to do with Black Voters. After all where are the Christian Conservatives going to go? The Democrats? Not unless it is a Zell Miller type.

Admittedly this isn't likely to happen in a deep red state, but in a Blue State it is possible. New York, California, Massachusetts, New Jersey, those places and perhaps other key locations this could happen. In the long run it would do far more the lend creditability to our causes, and strengthen our role in politics.

So... yeah... I might not agree with them, but they might be useful at least in the long run.

[AndyS40]

14. Unfortunately, I don't think this will work.

It might be an interesting idea for Log Cabiners to be co-opted as a "loyal opposition" and give us some input in Republican Party politics. That's what a lot of them say.

Having talked with and seen many Log Cabiners, they're not people with whom it is possible to deal, though, even on a non-political basis. While I'm not saying there aren't any, I've never seen one, and for me it would be like encountering some incredible never before seen animal like a winged fire breathing dragon.

Log Cabiners are a very embittered, embattled group of people. They literally hate gay non-Republicans and if you ever encounter one you will see nothing but suspicion, enmity and bitterness. Some of this is for good reason -- other gay people (particularly Democrats) see them as in general boot lickers and cowards, but they aren't unintelligent and they know that is what they are seen as no matter how diplomatically they are treated in any given context. There is a siege mentality and an absolute refusal to look inward.

Except for a select few of the Log Cabin leadership -- and I only take this by reports -- it is a wall that cannot be over-topped in the sense of dealing constructively on politics with other gay people who are not Republican.

For the others, the only way you can climb that wall they put up is by surrendering your point of view and agreeing with them on everything. Agreeing to disagree isn't possible while still maintaining any such thing as a constructive dialog.

[Meldread]

17. Perhaps if we...

Perhaps if we tried to think of ways to, shall we say, close the rift, they might be easier to control. That is to say, agreeing to disagree on most political issues, agreeing that we have a single common issue (gay rights), agreeing to work together on that single issue, and to not ostracize them from the community as a result of their political beliefs.

That could open the door to some constructive dialog and together we might find a way to leverage the two parties to work in favor of gay rights. If we could teach the Log Cabiners to grow a spine, withhold support, even out right campaign against extreme anti-gay Republicans... especially in states where there is no pressing need to be anti-gay, it would then in turn allow us to pressure Democrats to be more openly gay friendly. After all, if the opposition is doing it, there is no reason why a Democrat can't do it as well, even taking it a step further.

Hell, if a Republican came out and said he supported anti-discrimination laws, would fight for gay marriage, and would fight for equality for all LGBT people he'd have my vote unless the Democrat was promising the same. I really wouldn't care what else he believed.

After all, we aren't going to change their mind about the issues, but we can use them to our advantage - and in my opinion we should. Sometimes you just gotta suck it up and kiss a toad to get a prince.

Besides, do we really want to end up like the Christian Right, tied to a single political party? The Republicans yank them around on a chain, throw out a few empty promises when its time for re-election, and then forget about them. Do we want to end up like that, or would we rather have both parties competing for our attention, money, and votes thus increasing the likelihood of getting what we want.

I think this is the only viable method of actually seeing progress made via legislation. I mean, does anyone here really expect the Democrats just to wake up one day and say, "Hey I think we should all get together and pass a law legalizing same sex marriage!" It isn't likely, and if it were to happen most of us would either be dead or near death from old age.

...and now with the Supreme Court being stacked with Conservatives does anyone else see any other options? I don't.

[davidinalameda]

13. I can understand some GLBT support for some Repukes

but not the ones leading the party

and we all know that not all Democrats are the best on our issues as well

but I do agree--anyone who votes Repuke is enabling the leadership like DeLay, Bush and Santorum (or however you spell his name) to keep screwing us over just like they're screwing over the rest of this country

[Brian_Expat]

16. I like the LCRs

Yes, they self-delude, but what's the difference between a gay Republican insisting that George W. Bush is the bee's knees, and a Stonewall Democrat shilling for Stephanie Herseth or Bob Casey?

[Uncle Roy]

19. I think I'd say "homosexual Republican", not "gay Republican"

I haven't thought this all through, and I'm not trying to be overly picky here, but I think there really is a difference between the terms "gay" and "homosexual", and the difference has something to do with the communitarian impulse and self-identity. All gays are homosexual, but not all homosexuals are gay.

The term "homosexual" describes what you like to do in bed and who you like to do it with.

The term "gay" presupposes the homosexual part, but is also a tribal affiliation or an identity thing: "These are my people", "We are family", "We are all in this together", "We need to get these laws changed".

Republicans are the party of "me", not "we".

A homosexual who only cares about "my" tax cut is going to be a homosexual Republican.

A homosexual who thinks of himself more as a member of the homosexual community, and the wider community too, and cares about these things, is going to be a gay Democrat.

The term "gay Republican" really IS an oxymoran. J. Edgar Hoover and Roy Cohn were indeed homosexuals. But gay? Not very, my dear...