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Republicans are Gay
by Simon
Ok, well not ALL republicans are gay. But let's face it, if you were a closeted gay republican, wouldn't you feel just a little loss of excitement if your extramarital and heretofore heretical actions were suddenly state sanctioned? There's got to be a camp within the Grand Ol' Party that has a lascivious interest in keeping a Grand Ol' Secret.
Now that I've lost roughly 10% of my friends in a tart joke, I do have some beef with a certain group of proudly gay republicans, namely the Log Cabin Republicans. The New York Times had an article on them in this past week's Magazine. The LCR is a group of people who are proudly gay and proudly conservative on many issues. Alot of people don't like them, including both the religious right, who are currently closely aligned with the Republican party, and many liberals, who look at the LCR as a group that aligns itself with a party seeking to condemn them.
I don't think there's any fundamental problem with being a gay republican. I mean, if you're a gay laissez faire capitalist, it might be more important to you to fight alongside the party of lower taxes rather than the party of equal recognition. But the log cabin republicans want both, or at least they did until the president came out(tee hee) in favor of a constitutional amendment defining marriage as an institution existing only between one man and one woman.
It turns out that the LCR is more socially liberal than it is fiscally conservative. They have publicly condemned the president as being divisive and accurately accuse him of pandering for votes, since his base is largely socially conservative. This charge of pandering has even more strength behind it given that the amount of ratification necessary for a constitutional amendment makes it very unlikely that this one will see the light of day, so in a sense it can be viewed as a statement he can make whether or not he stands by a gay marriage ban. The LCR members say by and large that they will not support the president in November, no surprise, makes sense. However what doesn't make sense is their policy on the gay marriage, and here is where their republican roots will butt heads with their social convictions: They want gay marriage to be as it is currently, a purely state-level issue. This is a pipe-dream.
The President's decision to publicly support a gay marriage ban was likely triggered by the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision that the lack of legalized gay marriage violated that state's constitution. The President, and likely to a larger extent his socially conservative supporters, have good reason to be very anxious about such a decision. If gay marriage were to be legalized in Massachusetts, the Full Faith and Credit clause of our constitution might force every state to either recognize gay marriages occurring in Massachussetts or decide to not recognize gay marriages and prepare for a legal battle.
This is precisely why the Log Cabin Republicans should push for a federal statement on this issue. So I hear an anti gay marriage amendment doesn't have a chance on several fronts, and a pro gay marriage amendment is unneccessary because of the implied right to marry recognized by the supreme court in previous court decisions. But there are little things that could prove detrimental to the cause of gay marriages. The court has on occasion made decisions based on "historical fact." It's a bit of a loophole for them to do what they want if they're particularly driven by personal motives. For example, they might choose to declare marriage as a male-female union based on it's history as such a thing. Perhaps if enough states pass gay marriage bans that could muster the steam necessary down the line for a federal ban. So although the resolution to this issue will likely be on the state level or arise from it, there are reasons to be proactive about pushing for a firm decision on the federal level, even if some would say the decision is already implied.
My second conclusion is that my knowledge of the law is muddy.
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