Gay Marriage Will Destroy the GOP

Tony Perkins - Imperial Wizard of Hate

With public support for same sex marriage growing steadily and older anti-gay far right Christians literally dying off, the Republican Party is committing a slow form of suicide by continuing to prostitute itself to hate groups like Family Research Council - here in Virginia, the main merchant of hate is The Family Foundation - and toxic leaders like Tony Perkins, Franklin Graham and the leaders at NOM who believe that they are above the law.  A piece in Politico (not the most liberal of news outlets) makes the case why opposition to gay marriage will destroy the GOP.  Here are excerpts:

Since last year, the progress toward marriage equality has been nothing less than stunning. Nearly a year ago, the Supreme Court granted full federal recognition of married same-sex couples in declaring the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional. In rapid succession since then, federal judges in 13 states have overturned their state’s respective bans on same sex unions. The latest was last week in Pennsylvania, when Judge John E. Jones III, a G. W. Bush appointee, overturned the ban, writing, “We are a better people than what these laws represent.” Because Republican Gov. Tom Corbett has declined to appeal the judge’s decision, Pennsylvania is now the 19th state to legalize same-sex marriage.

Federal judges have ruled against the bans as diverse as Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia. Gay marriage isn’t just for blue states anymore.

One of the most eloquent statements against the bans was issued earlier this month by Arkansas federal judge Chris Piazza, who argued that state’s ban violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. “Procreation is not a prerequisite in Arkansas for a marriage license,” he said. “Opposite-sex couples may choose not to have children or they may be infertile, and certainly we are beyond trying to protect the gene pool. A marriage license is a civil document and is not, nor can it be, based upon any particular faith. 

Public opinion on this issue is marching forward as well. According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, 59 percent of Americans now support gay marriage. Only a third opposes it, nearly the reverse of the same poll 10 years ago. Forty percent of Republicans support it, and nearly 60 percent of Republicans between the ages of 18 and 29. Even 51 percent of white evangelicals under 35 support it.

And yet the Christian Right, or at least most of its self-proclaimed leaders, just won’t let it go. In mid-May, a group of them called the Conservative Action Project met outside Washington, D.C., to plot their next moves and devise their agenda to push back against the Republican leadership . . . .

Tony Perkins, head of the anti-gay Family Research Council, led a panel about restoring the “traditional family” as a Republican Party priority, as if almost universal opposition to gay rights has not been the party’s priority for several decades.

Polling consistently shows that independents, younger voters and women—all of whom used to routinely vote Republican in presidential contests—are now more often than not reliable Democrat voters. They are also pro-gay rights and same-sex marriage, especially younger voters. Unless Republicans begin to win some of them back with policies of social tolerance, they will simply no longer be in contention in presidential elections. Slavish devotion to right-wing social policies is the road to oblivion on the national stage.

So it’s time to stop letting the anti-gay tail wag the Republican dog. The Christian Right spokesmen’s pious pleas for tolerance for their anti-gay religious convictions will fall on deaf ears (and should) as long as they continue their own intolerance for those who practice different faiths or have different sexual orientations than they do.

Ending their tight grip on the party’s social agenda, and its 2016 platform, must be the top priority of those who wish to bring the Republican Party into the 21st century and make it appeal to more than just old white men.

The author is 100% correct - not that some in the GOP will still act with less integrity than a tawdry whore and still prostitute themselves to the Christofascists.