Western Republicans come out in support of marriage equality

From the New York Times:

Evoking Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater, a group of Western-state Republicans plans to enter the battle in favor of same-sex marriage on Tuesday, urging a federal appeals court to declare gay marriage bans in Utah and Oklahoma unconstitutional.

The most prominent of the approximately 20 signers of the brief are former Senator Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming, a longtime supporter of gay rights, and former Senator Nancy L. Kassebaum of Kansas, who said last year that she had reconsidered her former opposition to same-sex marriage. The document says that “marriage is strengthened” and “the social stability of the family unit are promoted” by allowing gay and lesbian couples to marry.

The document is a friend-of-the-court brief, being filed to the United States Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, in Denver. That court is hearing appeals from Utah and Oklahoma to reinstate their restrictive marriage laws.

The brief was the latest sign of widening cracks in Republican opposition to same-sex marriage, even deep in the country’s conservative heartland.

Jon Hunstman (Mormon, Republican) comes out for marriage equality

Logjam continues to break up, don't you think?  Another conservative voice for equality: 

But it’s difficult to get people even to consider your reform ideas if they think, with good reason, you don’t like or respect them. Building a winning coalition to tackle the looming fiscal and trust deficits will be impossible if we continue to alienate broad segments of the population.... And, consistent with the Republican Party’s origins, we must demand equality under the law for all Americans. 

...Today we have an opportunity to do more: conservatives should start to lead again and push their states to join the nine others that allow all their citizens to marry. I’ve been married for 29 years. My marriage has been the greatest joy of my life. There is nothing conservative about denying other Americans the ability to forge that same relationship with the person they love. 

All Americans should be treated equally by the law, whether they marry in a church, another religious institution, or a town hall. This does not mean that any religious group would be forced by the state to recognize relationships that run counter to their conscience. Civil equality is compatible with, and indeed promotes, freedom of conscience. 

Marriage is not an issue that people rationalize through the abstract lens of the law; rather it is something understood emotionally through one’s own experience with family, neighbors, and friends. The party of Lincoln should stand with our best tradition of equality and support full civil marriage for all Americans. 

I have to believe that this rumbling of support will get noticed by the Nine.  They aren't immune to politics, and they can see which way this is going.

Congress spends YOUR money to defend DOMA, ctd

You know how the Republicans are all for smaller government, and less government spending?  But that's not if government spending can marginalize the gays.  THAT, and they're all in favor.

From the HuffPo:

House Republican leaders have signed on to spend up to $3 million to keep defending the Defense of Marriage Act in court, according to a copy of their newly revised legal contract obtained by The Huffington Post.  

House Republican leaders took over the legal defense of DOMA in the spring of 2011, when Attorney General Eric Holder announced the Obama administration would no longer defend it on the grounds that they found it unconstitutional. House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and other GOP leaders hired attorneys at the law firm Bancroft LLC to represent the House in court cases involving the federal ban on gay marriage -- all with taxpayer dollars....

House Democratic leaders, meanwhile, sent a letter to Boehner later Tuesday voicing their opposition to sinking more money into DOMA's defense -- particularly given Republicans' calls for fiscal responsibility. 

"We wish to strongly reaffirm our objections to the repeated actions by the Republican leadership to secretly and dramatically increase the contract between the House and outside counsel in arguing to uphold the discriminatory Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) in more than a dozen cases," reads the letter from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and House Minority Whip Steny Hoyer (D-Md.). 

"It is the height of hypocrisy for House Republicans to waste public funds in one breath then claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility in the next," the letter continues. "With Republicans willing to take our economy and our country to the brink of default in the name of deficit reduction, there is simply no excuse for any Member of Congress to commit taxpayer dollars to an unnecessary -- and futile -- legal battle."

True conservatives

From Prop8TrialTracker:

The Indepdendent reports today that Michael Ashcroft, a former deputy chairman of the UK’s Conservative Party, has told Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron that he should stand up to those on the far right of his party who oppose marriage equality, arguing that to do otherwise would be even more politically damaging...

.... The poll found that 41 percent of respondents favored equal marriage rights, with 27 percent having no opinion. Thirty-one percent opposed marriage equality, but only 12 percent of that group said their vote would be affected by the issue.
....
That point stands in rather stark contradiction to American conservatives, who this week voted for a Republican party platform that is strongly anti-marriage equality and calls for a constitutional amendment banning marriages for gays and lesbians. In addition, the platform committee overwhelmingly (and, according to the Washington Post, noisily) voted down language that would have supported civil unions. Lord Ashcroft’s statements about “joiners and considerers” shows that on gay issues, the Republican party is becoming increasingly a small-tent operation, while in the UK, marriage equality has effectively ceased to be a partisan issue.

It has been pointed out many times that marriage equality is a deeply conservative belief.  The UK conservatives get that.  And it's yet more evidence that there are no conservatives left in the Republican party.  Andrew Sullivan writes passionately that the Republicans aren't conservative at all, but instead a religious populist association.  And just as I find Obama too conservative, Andrew finds him a true conservative.

That's why I have long been baffled as to why people said my preference over Obama was some kind of shift to the ideological left. Nope. Against a radical right, reckless, populist insurgency, Obama is the conservative option, dealing with emergent problems with pragmatic calm and modest innovation. He seeks as a good Oakeshottian would to reform the country's policies in order to regain the country's past virtues. What could possibly be more conservative than that? Or less conservative than the radical fusion of neoconservatism, theoconservatism and opportunism that is the alternative? 

For thinking conservatives of a classic variety, Obama is the best president since Clinton and the first Bush. We need him for the next four years if we are to avoid the catastrophes that always follow revolutionary ideology. Like another Iraq; or another Katrina; or another Lehman.

Conservative Iowa Republican converts to marriage supporter

The Advocate reports on a conservative Christian Republican woman in Iowa who has become pro-equality. 

All that changed three years ago when her son met and married a young woman whose mother was in a long-term lesbian relationship. Potts met her future in-laws shortly before the wedding and left the meeting embarrassed about the stereotypes she had carried to the encounter. 

“I was just freaking out: ‘This just can’t happen,’” she recalls thinking before their first conversation. “And then it dawned on me, this wasn’t worth losing my son over. And then once I started hanging around with them, I’m like, ‘This is insane.’” 

A Charismatic Christian who now attends church sporadically, Potts attributes much of her former bias to her faith experience. Her conversations with other Christians focused almost exclusively on sexual activity and dehumanized gay people. 

“I just thought it was all about sex,” she said. “That’s what everything was based on: sex, sex, sex, sex. You were expecting that they were constantly going to be hanging on each other and making out. I’d never thought of anyone as people. It was just all based on sex.”
....
Potts wrote about her evolution last month in an op-ed for the Iowa Gazette. The piece, “Stand Together,” offered a stinging assessment of the Iowa caucuses that took place in January.

“I heard a lot of rhetoric about gay and lesbian Americans that didn’t fit with what I know to be true and what many Republicans believe,” she wrote. “As an evangelical Christian Republican, I know many people who hold conservative values like equality and freedom, but those voices were lost this year. However, I believe in my heart that things are changing. If it weren’t for the loud voices of a few in our party, I do believe more Republicans would stand up in support of marriage equality.”

In an interview with The Advocate, Potts said that many Republicans in Iowa support marriage equality but fear they could be “ostracized” if they speak up. She said that one husband of a party insider told her that he was glad she wrote the op-ed because it reflected his own feelings. 

“The party here is being led by strong right-wing people right now,” she said. “A lot of them would like for it just to be church. They’ve very antigay, and with the abortion issue, too, they’re extremely loud spoken about it.”

Will we ever change the fringe?  I don't think so.  But this story tells us we can reach those who can hear, and it's why we need to keep coming out, and be who we are!

DOMA case to be appealed

The recent DOMA case  was resoundingly decided in the favor of the plaintiff, Karen Golinski, a Californian who sought health benefits for her legal spouse. As the WaPo remarks,

[Judge] White ... looked at DOMA’s legislative history, noting its “expressed animus against gay men and lesbians,” and found no important governmental objective. Congress listed four governmental interests supposedly protected by DOMA and White demolished them point by point.
●“Responsible procreation and child-rearing.” White cited more than 30 years of research that have “overwhelmingly demonstrated that children raised by same-sex parents are as likely to be as emotionally healthy and educationally and socially successful as those raised by opposite-sex parents.”
●“Nuturing the institution of traditional, opposite-sex marriage.” White said “DOMA does nothing to encourage same-sex married individuals to marry members of the opposite sex . . . . Nor does the denial of benefits to same-sex couples do anything to encourage opposite-sex couples to get married.”
●“Defending traditional notions of morality.” White was succinct: “Basing legislation on moral disapproval of same-sex couples does not pass any level of scrutiny.”
●“Preserving scarce government resources.” There is “no evidence,” White wrote, “to demonstrate that the provision of federal benefits to same-sex married couples would adversely affect the government fisc. In addition, the preservation of government resources cannot, as a matter of law, justify barring some arbitrarily chosen group from a government program.”

So,  predictably, the "Bipartisan" (not) legislative group BLAG--really, the Congressional Republicans-- will be spending your taxdollars to appeal this ruling.  It will be interesting to see how they will try to argue with Judge White's findings.

And still my marriage, like Karen Golinski's, remains unrecognized.

Anniversary of Prop8 Federal Decision

“Because California has no interest in discriminating against gay men and lesbians, and because Proposition 8 prevents California from fulfilling its constitutional obligation to provide marriages on an equal basis, the court concludes that Proposition 8 is unconstitutional.”

And what's changed?  NOTHING. Bachmann, Santorum, and Romney signed the Anti-Gay declaration that supports an anti-equality constitutional amendment and a commission to vigorously investigate and provide new protections for those opposed.

A more hopeful commentary: Rick Jacobs in the HuffPo.

Quote of the Day: Former Sen. Alan Simpson (R)

The video has been getting around but the transcript is pretty powerful too.

Former Sen Simpson has no patience with today's Republicans. REmember, this used to be the party that opposed intrusion into the private business of the people.

We have homophobes on our party. That’s disgusting to me. We’re all human beings. We’re all God’s children. Now if they’re going to get off on that stuff—Santorum has said some cruel things—cruel, cruel things—about homosexuals. Ask him about it; see if he attributes the cruelness of his remarks years ago. Foul. Now if that’s the kind of guys that are going to be on my ticket, you know, it makes you sort out hard what Reagan said, you know, 'Stick with your folks.' But I’m not sticking with people who are homophobic, anti-women, moral values—while you’re diddling your secretary while you’re giving a speech on moral values? Come on, get off of it." .

H/T JoeMyGod

Republican presidential hopefuls nearly all oppose marriage equality

And several oppose all forms of recognition.

The country shows a narrow majority in favor of marriage equality. At worst, we're evenly split.

But apparently if you are a Republican, you have to be anti-gay.

Feeding the base, it's called.

Data here.

It seems appropriate to point this out on April Fool's Day.

Update EqualityMatters reports that this is viewed as a problem by some Republicans, as this kind of social issue is going to drive away the independent voters they rely on to win elections. GOOD.

Gay rights a wedge issue in Republican politics

There aren't many conservatives here, so you might have missed the recent shenanigans around CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference, which brings the hard right together to strategize. (Conservatives are so much better organized than liberals.) Last year, the anti-gay groups that attended held their noses because several gay conservative groups were there: the Log Cabin Republicans, and GOProud. This year, however, the anti-gay groups have put their feet down demanding that the homos stay at home. And since the gays are coming, the anti-gays are boycotting the CPAC.

Says Jonathan Rauch:

Here’s the problem: conservatives’ hostility to homosexuality isolates them politically from the rest of the public, and the anti-gay consensus is fracturing even on the right (44 percent of Republicans say homosexuality should be accepted by society).

Translation: an issue which once divided and dispirited the Democratic coalition while uniting and energizing conservatives now cuts the other way. It’s a wedge issue against the right. Not just temporarily, either…..The anti-gay right is losing its grip, but it won’t surrender without a fight…

I think that's a little too hopeful, because the social conservatives are still very powerful particularly at the state and local level. And it's also worth remembering that having lost the DADT fight, the social conservatives are really going to dig in their heels about marriage equality. Whether it's repealing marriage in New Hampshire or repealing DP benefits in Wisconsin, there's a lot of venom left in the snake and it's still biting.

Judicial impartiality and Prop8

The Bad Guys argued that Judge Vaughn Walker couldn't be fair in the original Prop8 finding, because he is reputed to be gay. By their logic, only straight white Christian men can be fair.

Some on our side argued that because Judge Randy Smith, one of the three 9th circuit judges scheduled to hear the Prop8 appeal next week, might be Mormon, that he should be suspect. Fortunately this was shot down as completely inappropriate, for exactly the same reasons that the other side's protest against Judge Walker was unjustified. It doesn't matter.

But the Bad Guys don't believe that. WHile they would have yowled if our side had protested Judge Smith, they next demanded that Judge Stephen Reinhardt, another of the panel, recuse himself because his wife works for the Southern California ACLU. Judge Reinhardt said "no".

Funny how the conservatives believe such rules only apply to liberals. On the Supreme Court, Justice Clarence Thomas's wife ran the tea party group Liberty Central. More directly concerning are the actions of Justices Thomas and Scalia, who themselves attended conservative political meetings organized by the mysterious Koch brothers, and Justice Samuel Alito, who actively participates in conservative fundraising.

IOKIYAR, I guess.

The rights splits on marriage equality

From David Frum:

Gay marriage is ruled a federal right for the first time and the response from the GOP is… tepid. Not one nationally prominent elected official thought the issue was important enough to get worked up over. The only cries of outrage were from politically active religious groups.....

The list of conservatives supporting gay equality is growing – from the many Republican appointed judges who have ruled in favor of various gay rights cases, to GOP Solicitor General Ted Olson, Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and even the ultraconservative former Vice President Dick Cheney. Nowadays Margaret Hoover of Fox News sits on the board of GOProud alongside conservative Grover Norquist; and even Elisabeth Hasselbeck has come out in support of gay marriage rights....

What is happening to the GOP? First our elected officials tire of bashing gays and now our pundits? Perhaps Republicans are beginning to see the writing on the wall.....

The religious right may be having a conniption, but younger Republicans increasingly appear to believe that opposing gay equality is inconsistent with a belief in increased liberty and smaller government. Although the religious right will continue to be a strong presence in the GOP for years to come, changing demographics are not on the side of anti-gay forces and the GOP appears to be awakening to this reality.

Meanwhile, Glenn Beck comments that he doesn't care about whether gays marry. Ann Coulter plans to speak at a conservative gay convention. Ken Mehlman comes out. The old social warriors are foaming at the mouth.

Michael Keegan at the HuffPo writes,

[O]n the issue of gay rights, the Right Wing now finds itself up against both the Constitution and the will of a steadily increasing majority....

Opponents of marriage equality still boast outwardly of the merits their case will have before the Court. But it seems that they are beginning to see that this case is likely to be both a far-reaching victory of the principles of dignity and personal freedom, and a powerful sign that anti-gay arguments, though loud as ever, are increasingly being shouted from the legal and social fringe....

Americans of all political stripes believe that their gay friends and family members have the right to equal protection under the law, and there is now a solid legal and factual precedent to back it up, shaped in large part by a conservative lawyer, filed by a conservative judge, and echoed by the traditions of a nation devoted to fairness and respect.

Update from an un-named "Prominent Republican"

"I think there is a growing mass of people in Republican politics who are fundamentally sick and tired about being lectured to about morality and how to live your life by a bunch of people who have been married three or four times and are more likely to be seen outside a brothel on a Thursday night than being at home with their kids... There is a fundamental indecency to the vitriol and the hatred directed against decent people because of their sexuality. People have reached a critical mass with this."

Ken Mehlman: another Republican comes out (video)

It should be noted that Ken Mehlman, former chair of the Republican National Committee and former chair of Bush's re-election campaign, has come out as gay, and in support of marriage equality.

But Mehlman was intimately involved with the Bush campaign that cynically relied on anti-gay ballot measures to get out the vote. Although today he says,

I understand that folks are angry, I don't know that you can change the past. As I've said, one thing I regret a lot is the fact that I wasn't in the position I am today where I was comfortable with this part of my life, where I was able to be an advocate against that [strategy] and able to be someone who argued against it. I can't change that - it is something I wish I could and I can only try to be helpful in the future.

I think that comes down to, "I couldn't do anything about it". Although turns out, he was in the thick of it.

"I think the issue was injected when a liberal court in Massachusetts said they were going to redefine a 200 year old institution in this country by judicial fiat," said Mehlman, who also endorses a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage political catnip for the Christian Right.-- (2006)

It's great that he's on the correct side, now. But he did a lot of damage--a lot of it. And the damage he did is why the one class of people I favor outing, is closeted conservatives who actively promote anti-gay agendas.

I'm glad he's opening his wallet and his rolodex. But if he's really going to support the community and make up for what he participated in during the Bush years, he's going to have to step up, admit it, and use his insider knowledge to defeat the dirty tricks of Roveian politics.

Which is it, Mr Mehlman?

Jon Stewart:

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Thinking conservatives move away from anti-gay rhetoric

My Dad used to be a Republican. You know, the fiscally cautious small businessman type, who worked hard, behaved responsibly towards his employees, disliked taxes, and pretty much let people run their own lives in a vaguely libertarian way. Remember those? They got washed away by neo-Cons and theo-Cons and no longer see their values in the Republican Party. The earth may be warming but hell has clearly frozen over because Dad now votes Democrat.

BushCo cynically played the religious right and its social issues, with particular focus on the anti-gay card, and converted the minority view represented by the Evangelicals into political capital. (Though it behooves us to remember that DOMA and DADT were gifts from the Clinton Administration. Thanks for nothing, Bill.) But for good or bad, the semi-rational tea-party activists who now seem in the ascendant in the Republican party aren't particularly interested in social issues (except maybe in Texas--see yesterday's post).

And it seems, in a society where acceptance of gay relationships has risen to over 50% (here and here), and where the young OVERWHELMINGLY approve of GLBT relationships, the savvy conservative recognizes that an anti-gay attitude may end up being a liability.

Writing in the NY Times Charles Blow comments that more men than women now find gay relationships "morally acceptable", and the numbers have increased dramatically. Why?

1. The contact hypothesis. As more men openly acknowledge that they are gay, it becomes harder for men who are not gay to discriminate against them......
2. Men may be becoming more egalitarian in general. As Dr. Kimmel put it: “Men have gotten increasingly comfortable with the presence of, and relative equality of, ‘the other,’ and we’re becoming more accustomed to it. ....

And my personal favorite,

3. Virulent homophobes are increasingly being exposed for engaging in homosexuality. Think Ted Haggard,....or George Rekers....In fact, there is a growing body of research that supports the notion that homophobia in some men could be a reaction to their own homosexual impulses. Many heterosexual men see this, and they don’t want to be associated with it. It’s like being antigay is becoming the old gay. Not cool.

It's not really acceptance, then, but it's grudging tolerance. Still that's better than it was.

Now, combine this with the news that right-wingers Grover Norquist of the Club for Growth, and Margaret Hoover of Fox News, have joined the group GOProud, a gay, right-wing republican group that considers the Log Cabin Republicans too liberal.

"GOProud is an important part of the conservative movement," said Norquist. "I am proud to join GOProud's Board of Advisors and to help in advancing their common-sense conservative agenda of limited government, lower taxes and individual liberty."

Hmmmm. I think it's too soon to call it a sea-change, but it sure sounds like the social-issues conservative voters are being herded towards the back of the bus. About bloody time.

Of course, ol' Grover is getting some flak from the Usual Suspects, including the Family Research Council (that link is to Pam's House Blend, since I won't link to hate sites):

Grover is famous for saying he'll work with anyone who agrees with him "80 percent of the time." But it's been the social issues that he seems willing to sacrifice. His belief that we can have fiscal stability without moral decency is doomed to failure and only drives a deep wedge in a movement that was unified to bring change to Washington this fall.

Where's my popcorn?

Update: Norquist is unrepentant.