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Gay-rights group covers Illinois delegates' bar tab, criticizes GOP gay-marriage plat

Discussion in 'Current Events, World News, & LGBT News' started by Dan82, Aug 28, 2012.

  1. Dan82

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    http://blogs.suntimes.com/politics/...tab_criticizes_gop_gay-marriage_platform.html


     
  2. Pret Allez

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    Re: Gay-rights group covers Illinois delegates' bar tab, criticizes GOP gay-marriage

    That's pretty dishonest. Opposition to same-gender marriage is a mainstream view, not a fringe "far right" opinion, and it hasn't "hijacked" anything about the Republican party.
     
  3. Rakkaus

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    Re: Gay-rights group covers Illinois delegates' bar tab, criticizes GOP gay-marriage

    Huh? Opposition to marriage equality is absolutely a far-right position. It is not a valid difference of opinion, but just plain old shameless bigotry, no matter how 'mainstream' it is in this backward country.

    And Mitt Romney allowing the far-right to hijack the GOP platform is definitely yet another poor reflection on Romney's leadership skills (or rather, lack thereof) even though he's running for president on the basis that he is some sort of great manager. It also shows pretty poor political sense, unless Mitt thinks it's still 2004.
     
  4. Pret Allez

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    Re: Gay-rights group covers Illinois delegates' bar tab, criticizes GOP gay-marriage

    Opposition to marriage equality is an opinion held by about 44% of folks, so I don't think it can be called a far-right position. It's just a near-right position. It is an opinion held by too many of our fellow Americans to be a fringe view.

    My point in bringing it up is that I don't want to let people try and say social authoritarianism is a departure from what conservatives have always believed, and that the "real" Republican platform, if we could only return to it, is just about economic liberalism and opposes constraints on people's personal freedoms.
     
  5. Aldrick

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    Re: Gay-rights group covers Illinois delegates' bar tab, criticizes GOP gay-marriage

    While you're right Pret Allez (and are even more correct to call it what it is: social authoritarianism), the point of using the words "fringe" and "far right" isn't to be accurate. It's an attempt to paint the opponents outside of the mainstream of American thought, to mislead people into believing that holding such a position could potentially be a liability.

    This type of word play is done all the time in American politics.
     
  6. Rakkaus

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    Re: Gay-rights group covers Illinois delegates' bar tab, criticizes GOP gay-marriage

    Denying basic equality under the law to a segment of the population is nevertheless a far-right position, regardless of how many people hold it. Support for segregation based on race was once very high in the South, but that did not make it a respectable mainstream position. Then as now, we just have a lot of extremists in this country.

    46% of Americans were comfortable voting to put Sarah Palin one 76-year-old heartbeat away from the presidency of the United States. There is a large but shrinking minority of people in this country who are simply irrational and extreme in their worldviews.

    But this platform is the most fervently and explicitly anti-gay in history. The Evangelicals and social regressives first swooped in to control the GOP with Reagan in 1980, but this 2012 platform is the most reactionary ever, especially in the context of how much the country as a whole has moved forward on LGBTQ issues in recent years.

    Mitt Romney is no longer running for the Republican nomination. He now needs to win a general election, which means he needs to appeal to a broad swath of voters, including independents, moderates, Democrats, etc. to win the White House. He's not going to win just by constantly kowtowing to the extreme Republican Party base, which is why it makes no sense why he allowed the far-right free reign over the platform.