Ken Mehlman was Bush's campaign manager for 2004 and later was elected as Chairman of the Republican National Committee. A couple of weeks ago, he acknowledged that he is gay, and came out in active support of gay marriage.
Now he is co-hosting a major fund-raiser featuring the two lawyers who argued the anti-Prop8 case, Ted Olsen and David Boies. Other listed co-sponsors include: Steve Schmidt (McCain's campaign manager), Mark Gerson (former Bush speech-writer), Michael Huffington (former Repubican congressman and Arianna's gay ex-hubby), William Weld (former Republican governor of MA), and Christie Todd Whitman (former Republican governor of NJ and Bush's first head of the EPA). There are other important Republican names that I am not familiar with, but those who know say this is a list of the elite moderate Republicans.
Steve Schmidt has spoken out before on gay issues. Here's what he was quoted as saying in connection with this fundraiser:
"There is a strong conservative case to be made in favor of gay marriage. Marriage is an institution that strengthens and stabilizes society. It is an institution that has the capacity to bring profound joy and happiness to people and it is a matter of equality and keeping faith of one of the charters of the nation, the right to live your life."More and more conservatives are saying that opposition to gay marriage would not be a litmus test for membership in the GOP. And more conservatives are making the case that no more do you want big government conservatives in the bedroom than big government liberals telling you how to live your life."
David Brooks also wrote a column in 2003 making "the conservative case for gay marriage," but he hasn't been heard from since on the issue. Probably he was too far ahead of the time.
It would certainly seem paradoxical, but could it be that gay marriage could be the rallying cry for the endangered species of moderate republicans to re-emerge? In fact, except for the fringes, the Tea Party crowd isn't so focused on culture issues like this but on the role of government and economic issues.
Ralph
An unnamed but prominent Republican who supports gay rights said this:
ReplyDelete"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."
*keeping fingers crossed that this wave develops*
ReplyDeleteBarbara
In a related note, not issue specific, my son David plays classical guitar at a bistro every Thursday and he said he heard, for the first time, a number of conservative men complaining about how the whackos are taking over and true conservatism is being pushed out of the way. They see the enemy as the Tea Party, not Obama.
ReplyDeleteSo maybe there is hope.
Wow, did I just say that?
richard
Richard !!!!! There's hope for you yet -- if you're still capable of hope.
ReplyDeleteRalph
Two things:
ReplyDeleteThe opposite of hope is envy. There's little to envy about the current conservatopia. I still hold out hope that it will drown in its own wastes. I have a hard time believing that Glenn Beck is going to win new souls. I'm reminded of the Baptist church up the street where the same people got born again, again and again...
It is remarkable to watch the momentum shift on Gay Marriage. Who'd've thunk it? Very encouraging to see so many of them rediscovering rational thought...
I'd like to think it's encouraging about the sanity and rationality of fellow humans -- but it may be that things shifted just enough that it no longer was a viable wedge issue -- so the politicos shifted their stance.
ReplyDeleteThere was an interesting time in the American Psychoanalytic Assn. when there was a shift in what was "politically correct" and consequently who was making noise and who was keeping quiet.
It seemed there too that things moved gradually, and then all of a sudden, who was speaking up had shifted. The p0litical leaders got behind us instead of obstructing us.