Log Cabin Republican (LCR) Political Director Mark Mead and his fellow gay Republicans must be living in some kind of dream-world. He seems to actually believe that their new Majority Leader Tom Delay cares what they think.
“I think if he wants to be successful, they’re going to have to listen to all parts of the party, including us,” Mead said.
Where is the evidence that this party is listening to him? Delay has a long history of anti-gay activity as well as problems understanding the concept of Civil Liberty for non-white, non-Christians. Let’s take a look.
[ul]
[li]Delay supported the Hefley Amendment which would have overturned President Clinton’s May 28, 1998 executive order banning workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation in federal jobs.[/li][li]Voted YES on DOMA.[/li] [li]Voted YES on banning human cloning, including medical research. (Jul 2001) [/li][li]Voted YES on banning Family Planning funding in US aid abroad. (May 2001) [/li][li]Voted YES on banning partial-birth abortions. (Apr 2000) [/li][li]Voted YES on barring transporting minors to get an abortion. (Jun 1999) [/li][li]Voted YES on Permanent Normal Trade Relations with China. (May 2000) [/li][li]Voted YES on Constitutional amendment prohibiting Flag Desecration. (Jul 2001) [/li][li]Voted YES on banning gay adoptions in DC. (Jul 1999) [/li] [li]Voted YES on ending preferential treatment by race in college admissions. (May 1998) [/li][li]Voted NO on funding for alternative sentencing instead of more prisons. (Jun 2000) [/li] [li]Voted NO on maintaining right of habeus corpus in Death Penalty Appeals. (Mar 1996) [/li][li]Voted YES on making federal death penalty appeals harder. (Feb 1995) [/li][li]Voted NO on replacing death penalty with life imprisonment. (Apr 1994) [/li][/ul]
Here’s some quotes from and about Delay:
I could go on, but I don’t think it necessary. This is the Lunatic that the Republican Party has elected as House Majority Leader. If this is the nutcase the general membership endorses, why do the LRC members think the party cares one whit about their opinion? Why should any of us think the Republican Party is interested in anything but Big Business and Rich, Straight, White Men?
To me the election of Tom Delay tells more about the Republican Party than all the apologia Mead or the Republicans on this board can offer.
In your list of quotes and votes for Mr. DeLay, I failed to find even one that supported your assertion that Mr. DeLay has “…problems understanding the concept of Civil Liberty for non-white, non-Christians.” Please provide this evidence.
Well, the LCR wants the party to also be interested in Rich, Gay, White, Men. But, seriously, what do you do if you’re gay and conservative? Hypothetically (and I’m not neccesarily talking about Mead here, because I don’t know his stances), what if you are gay and opposed to human cloning, opposed to partial birth abortion, opposed to letting minors cross state lines to get abortions, support trade normalization with China, are opposed to flag burning, against affirmative action, against alternative sentencing, and support the death penalty?
In that case, the only difference you have with Delay, from the list above, is on gay issues, and admittedly, Delay isn’t all that great on those issues. But, you gotta dance with the one that brings you to the dance. How far do you think a national Republican organization is going to get in getting its issues heard by any of the Republicans in Congress if the first thing it does is publically criticize its party caucus’s choice for House Majority Leader?
The LCR point up the inherent problem with the way the two major parties have evolved - neither is ideologically consistent. Democrats (at least so far as their platform goes) think government should be interventionist in economics and laissez-faire on social issues, and Republicans are the opposite. There is little room for folks who approach economic and social issues with the same attitude.
So the choice becomes which issue you think is more important.
I’ll second to what Captain Amazing says. We live in a two-party system, for better or worse. If you work only with one party (i.e., Democrats), you are effectively shut out when that party is out of power. Especially now, when Republicans control both houses of Congress and the presidency.
The Log Cabin Republicans are Republicans because they support 90% of the Republican platform and principles, and they are working to reform the remainder to make the Republican party more gay accepting, if not gay friendly. One example is that Log Cabin Republicans worked with Platform Committee Chairman Tommy Thompson before the 2000 Republican National Convention to remove anti-gay references from, and insert language on national AIDS policy to, the draft of the platform he presented to the committee.
If you want a Republican Party that still harbors anti-gay members, by all means knock those who are working to reform the party.
I just read Blinded by the Right, by David Brock. Brock was a gay man who was an attack dog for the right wing. Blinded by the Right details his growing understanding of his own self-loathing and internal homophobia. I certainly can’t speak for each individual member of the LCR, but I’m sure his account must resonate to some degree with a lot of them.
So if you have relations with members of the same sex you’re required to support…
[list=a][li]Federal authority over individual state laws with regards to marriage?[]Human cloning?[]Spending my tax money on 3rd World population control?[]Ripping fully developed infants from their mothers and shoving a scalpel into their brains because the couple wanted a boy?[]Removing the rights of parents whose teenage daughters opt not to inform them they want to terminatea pregnancy[]Wipe their ass with a symbol their fathers and grandfathers fought and died to defend[]Turn a blind eye to reverse discrimination at universities[]Be soft on crime[]Be anti-death penalty[/list][/li]Count me out
This is America, one does not need to justify anti-Republican screeds to anyone outside the Justice Department.
As for the Log Cabin Republicans, they are a fake gay rights group designed to be a cover (maybe “beard” is a more fit term) for the Republican party so that at least one “gay rights” group supports them.
That is the crux of this thread. Choosing DeLay as the House Majority Leader shows that the party is NOT becoming more gay accepting. It’s no caricature. DeLay is clearly anti-gay. By electing a rabid homophobe as Majority Leader, the Republican Party belies their claims to be a Big Tent party.
Nice list of strawmen there JohnBckWLD. I’ll only address one.
[ul]
[li]Federal authority over individual state laws with regards to marriage?[/li][/ul]
So you have a problem with the Supreme Court’s decision in Loving v. Virginia? On preview gobear is no Log Cabin Republican.
No, I am Sparticus, this is the Great Debates forum. Anti-Republican screeds, like any proposition offered here, must be justified with verifiable facts and sound arguments supporting any inferences drawn from those facts.
In addition to the OP’s unsupported claim that Mr. DeLay does not support civil rights for non-white, non-Christian Americans, we now have two unsupported claims from you. (I am, sadly, not particularly shocked at this development). What is your evidence that the Log Cabin Republicans are a “fake gay rights group?”
They have over forty chapters across the nation. An admittedly self-serving list of accomplishments for the group appears here. They have a web page, downtown DC offices, and thousands of members nationwide.
What’s the evidence they are fake, or that their desire for gay rights is fake?
Homebrew, your quote seems excellent evidence that DeLay is a Christian. It doesn’t remotely address the proposition that he feels non-Christians should be denied civil rights.
A quick Google search for “gop big tent” reveals that people have been questioning the quality of the canvas forming the “GOP Big Tent” since at least 1995.
Well, yeah, Delay is anti-gay, and, given their druthers, LCR probably wouldn’t have picked him, but, the House having picked them, what do you want LCR to do? Publicly denounce him? How will that get them anywhere, or make the Republican party more willing to listen to their positions?
Well, while there are other reasons to be opposed to the death penalty or support raising death penalty standards than because you want to commit murder, you’re right that the “death penalty”, as an issue, isn’t one that directly impacts on gays as a group.
Come on, Bricker. His comments about his role “to promote ‘a biblical worldview’ in American politics” is at best disconcerting and casts a serious credibility problem as to his objectivity. He blamed the Columbine shootings and juvenile violence on parents putting kids in daycare and working mothers. When Salon magazine broke the story about Henry Hyde’s
This is a anti-DeLay screed. The Republican Party is tarred by their association with him and by electing him Majority Leader.
