Dear gay Republicans: keep repeating your crap victim line about how it’s harder to get dates be accepted as a Republican in gay circles than it is to come out a gay among wingnuts, but we’ll still stick with the folks who are at least a bit more likely to respect our fundamental dignity as human beings. Think Progress:
During today’s RNC debate, all four candidates vying to replace current RNC Chairman Michael Steele reiterated their opposition to expanding marriage rights to gay and lesbian people, insisting that marriage can only be defined as a union between one man and one woman. The frontrunners for the position — Steele and Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Reince Priebus — also walked a tight rope of sorts, arguing that while marriage formed the foundation of American society, culture and history, excluding gay people from that all-important institution did not deny “dignity” to the LGBT community.
It’s sort of interesting, though, because none of the candidates are saying outright bigoted things anymore — at least not in the naked way they used to. They know that, even though their party is committed to sustaining its bigotry as long as it can, their views on the subject are no longer socially acceptable, especially among the segments of the population that are expected to live more than a few more years. So they say coded things meant to serve as dog biscuits whistles for the bigoted base, and hope that suffices until the arc of history requires them to embrace equality and rewrite history so that they can tell their kids, like they do now with desegregation, that it was Democrats who fought the hardest against equality. *
Watch a round-up of the comments:
*And what did those Southern Democrats all become later? REPUBLICANS! Why? RACISM! God!
