Gay Republicans -- how will the Party deal with them?

I had a sudden thought this morning. Should the Republicans lose big on Tuesday, the conservative wing might simply pin it on gays. I can hear it now --“They infiltrated our party to make this day happen.” Foley, the various Congressional staff who are suddenly being scrutinzed during this investigation, and Haggard, make convenient targets.

Do you see the Republicans doing some very public purges after the election? Or moving back toward the center and cooling down their firebrand social agenda rhetoric?

They’ll deal with them the same way they’ve been dealing with them. They’ll ignore them 98% of the time and make half-hearted pitches for money and votes the other 2% of the time. And the gay Republicans will continue to fall for it, because once you’ve deluded yourself to the point of thinking that you can be both gay and a Republican, there’s no limit to your capacity for self-deception.

But parties have to blame someone or something for their defeats. Of course that’s not to say they will make the correct choices. If not gays, then who or what?

Huh they make half hearted pitches in favor of gay republicans? With what I’ve seen the only reason gays support republicans is because they are masocists.

Gays will not be the issue. If the Republicans lose big, the fracture will be along the following lines: Economic conservatives vs Bushite big government conservatives, possibly with another split between social moderates and evangelicals.

Big issues that the Republicans have to deal with include stem cell research, spending control, and the Iraq war.

Stem cell research is a good example of an issue that could fracture the Republicans. A majority of Republican voters actually favor embryonic stem cell research, and the population as a whole is for it in a big way. Opposing it obviously hurts the Republican party, and yet the Republican party is officially against it, in part because Bush is against it, and in part because of the evangelical wing of the party.

There are Republicans who are socially moderate, don’t give a crap about stem cell research and Terry Schiavo, and who are sick of Bush’s religious posturing and big government habits. And they’re sick of the cultural conservative wing of the party that doesn’t care much about small government and traditional Republican values, instead focusing on opposing gay marriage, stem cell research, and keeping the Ten Commandments in courthouses.

Basically, it’s the Reagan Republicans, who are fiscally conservative and socially moderate, against the Pat Robertson Republicans, who are fiscally agnostic and only care about social issues, on which they are very conservative. That’s where the fight will be.

No, they make pitches to gay Republicans, then create completely worthless organizations like the Republican Unity Council and ignore them.

Oops, the name of the completely worthless organization is the Republican Unity Coalition, not Council.

Swifty and brutally, with clubs! And not the clubs with throbbing dance beats and disco balls!

Why, oh why did I have to answer this using the words “club” and ''balls"? :smack:

And “throbbing”!

You may be right about this explanation, but it makes me think that ultimately, the GOP won’t change much. I think the small-government Republicans would be hopelessly outnumbered, and it remains to be seen if they’d ever become a reliable Democratic constituency. Since the Republican Party will probably have to distance itself from Bush anyway, they may try to appeal to those fiscal conservatives by saying they will return to those values in 2008.

Gay Republicans vs. evangelicals could be interesting. I don’t think the Democrats did anything to endear themselves to gays during the Foley scandal, though.

Well, if nothing else, it is starting to make the rabid Republican stance against homosexuality look sillier than it already is. I mean, come on…even a staunch Republican has got to start wondering what the hell is happening.

And it certainly puts the Republicans on the defense when they go harping on their patent on moral family values.

How will the Republicans be able to keep a straight face when decrying Democrats as fag lovers, when there are suddenly so many Gay faces popping up in their midst?

By claiming that they are infilterators and part of a gay liberal atheistic agenda to subvert the Republicans to Godless Liberalism. And they’ll probably work terrorism into that somewhere.

Exactly the point of my OP. Or at least one possible outcome – a big ugly purge to try to reconnect with the most conservative part of their base.

Sam Stone, I understand what you mean by Reagan Republicans, but I wonder if people remember that he too drove deficits up to record levels in his time – even without a war.

Never mind – stupid question on my part. Of course they won’t remember – in 2004 voters didn’t even remember 2001-2003.

Before 1948, the Democratic Party was the party of racial segragation. Less than twenty years later, it was the party that passed the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act.

What exactly was the role Democrats played in the Foley scandal? I’ve yet to hear of a single Democrat who knew about Foley’s pederastic activities, in fact the Democrat on the relevant House oversight board was IIRC deliberately not informed by his Republican colleagues. Nor have I heard any statements from any Democrats which would alienate the affections of the party’s gay constituency.

You might want to check out this article from the Washington Post, about the fight between Dick Armey and James Dobson.

according to the article, Armey’s arguing that the Republicans are going to lose in November

and that

As you can imagine, the Dobson people are pretty upset over these comments.

I cannot say how much I hope they blame their losses on Secret Agent Gays infiltrating their ranks. That is just pure comedy gold!

I always feel so bitter when I hear about how we’re taking over the world.

Listen, I can’t even deal with my cat.

There’s a joke there about gay men and pussies, but, I shall refrain.

And after LBJ signed that into law, he commented that the Democrats had sacrificed for this – they would not elect another President for 20 years. (And he turned out to be quite right).

Jimmy Carter was a Republican?