Boehner support gay GOP candidates

Timothy Kincaid

December 5th, 2013

Sometimes the extra-special brand of crazy right-wing nutcases are useful. Like, for example, Virginia Representative Randy Forbes. (Politico)

Forbes has waged a lengthy crusade to convince his colleagues and the National Republican Congressional Committee brass they shouldn’t back some gay candidates. His efforts on Capitol Hill were described to POLITICO by more than a half-dozen sources with direct knowledge of the talks.

Republican leadership is only in the infancy stage of wooing gay voters, but they recognize that to be a viable party in the future they need to shed the anti-gay rhetoric and ideology (among other positions). And they have taken steps, including putting party support behind a handful of gay GOP candidates.

Yet they also recognize that this will not sit well with a segment of their constituency, so they are not trumpeting their support of gay candidates on a broad scale. However, Forbes’ obnoxious hate-filled grandstanding forced the hand of leadership.

On Thursday, following POLITICO’S report, Speaker John Boehner said his party should support gay Republican congressional candidates.

Many Republicans seem willing to back DeMaio. Rep. Darrell Issa, a senior California Republican who has endorsed him, said that “he will be supported by the NRCC when he wins the primary.”

“I will see to that,” said Issa, who chairs the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

Asked about Speaker John Boehner’s policy toward gay candidates, an aide pointed to several contributions the Ohio Republican made to Tisei during the past election cycle. Boehner also visited Boston to raise money for Tisei during the summer of 2012.

This is, of course, no indication that the party as a whole is supportive of gay issues or that it is going to become so overnight. It does, however, suggest that the leadership now recognizes that it can no longer be associated with blatant bigotry and it sends a signal that the power of the far right within the party may be waning.

Steve

December 5th, 2013

It says everything one needs to know about the party when this is lauded a great accomplishment.

Lord_Byron

December 5th, 2013

Now they just need to stop supporting racist, sexist, anti-science, and xenophobic candidates and policies and they could possibly survive. For me, supporting a few token gay candidates does not change my view of the party.

TampaZeke

December 5th, 2013

I’m not sure it says that at all. At least not at this point. Besides, the Republican Party could choose from a number of GayPatriot.com/GOProud type of gay conservatives that would pass the most right-wing, anti-gay litmus test they could come up with with flying colors.

Lord_Byron

December 5th, 2013

Wow, Tampa, I had not even heard of GayPatriot.net before. I agree with you. As seen by the likes of GOProud you can gay men, I think it’s entirely men in GOProud, that will be as anti-gay as they can be.

enough already

December 5th, 2013

Well, it’s an interesting situation.
I’ll withhold comment until I see how this plays out.
Generally speaking, the Republicans and the hateful christians never do anything which is not aimed at stripping us of our rights, whether in the short term or the long.

[TK: I corrected your typo in the word “Republicans” as I’m sure that you did not intend to use hate-speech in violation of our Comments Policy]

Donny D.

December 6th, 2013

It isn’t a matter of being either homophobic or pro-gay. The GOP doesn’t want to lose the homophobes that support it. But on the other hand, outright homophobia now alienates too many people. The GOP isn’t just looking at possible gay (or even L, B or T) voters, but also at the larger and growing number of cisgender straight people who don’t like overt homophobia.

It will try to balance continuing to appeal to homophobes with not alienating and maybe even appealing to LGB people and their allies. It’ll be interesting to see how well they pull it off.

mickey

December 6th, 2013

He is caught in a trap he created for himself. He just made comments about how enda was unnecessary. It would be terribly difficult to claim employment fairness isn’t warranted when they themselves continue to demonstrate its need in real time during this election cycle.

Jim Hlavac

December 6th, 2013

Remember – the Democrats went through the same process. For we are not a political issue of any common sort – gayness is just so different.

You know, I don’t think many gay men of today realize that just 20 years ago both parties were pretty much the same on gay stuff: hated it. Remember, too, that pretty much all the states that still had no-gay sex laws until 2003 were Democratic run states. Plus, majorities of blacks, who vote 95% Democrat — are still very anti-gay. This idea that somehow Democrats were “for” us all along is absurd. They just merely “evolved” faster than other heteros. Why, Obama, Biden and Hillary Clinton all said repeatedly during their campaigns that they were against gay marriage — then they all evolved in the last year or two.

So, help the Republicans evolve — so we can get beyond this 60 year discussion over our existence – instead of constantly berating them. We had to help the Democrats — so we should the Republicans — for heteros are heteros..

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