The Hypocrisy Behind Fred Thompson's Stand Against Gay Marriage?

Fred Thompson, having just announced (surprise!) that he's running for president, made haste to tackle what he clearly considers one of the top priorities confronting the nation today: Stopping Gay Marriage:

“I am proposing a constitutional amendment that would stop gay marriages as a practical matter in this country."

Is this because Thompson clearly believes gay marriages are a serious moral threat or because Republican strategist Rich Galen -- who is a senior advisor on the Thompson campaign -- told him that playing the gay card was a good way to win conservative votes.

Lat fall, before the 2006 Congressional elections, Galen publicly (in a column published Oct. 27) called on GOP candidates to tie the then-recent NJ Supreme Court decision supporting gay unions to Nancy Pelosi, her "San Francisco values" and to Congressional Democrats.

Okay, pandering to homophobia to win votes isn't that new, but then comes the blatant hypocrisy from Galen:

I know I will be accused of gay-bashing, but I am not. I am looking at this from a purely political standpoint. I understand homosexuality exists and denying that is foolhardy. If we want to reduce the effects of HIV/AIDS on society, fostering long-term relationships - even homosexual relationships - would be one very good way to do it.

I was so stunned that someone could acknowledge that gay unions might be a good thing for society (Rich equates it with reducing the the effects of HIV/AIDS, which I might point out, people still die from) but at the same time abandon that moral and public good for partisan political gain. I am naive, which Rich pointed out to me when I emailed him challenging him on this point. He wrote me:

...you're shocked that political people look at things through a political prism? Oh, please.

So, the questions that Fred Thompson should be asked:

1. Are you privately supportive of gay people and their relationships (surely you came across many in Hollywood) despite this public stand?
2. Are you viewing the gay marriage issue through a "political prism" and not a societal/moral/public policy one?
3. With senior advisers on your payroll who believe one thing but abandon their beliefs to win votes, how will the American people know you are sincere about your beliefs when you stake out a position, especially on polarizing issues?
4. Will you take stands on issues you believe in even if you know it may cost you votes?

Gay Marriage a 600-Year-Old Idea?

Apparently yes, according to this Science Daily article. Single unrelated males were getting married in France 600 years ago.

Semantics

If the difference between marriage and civil unions is "semantic" as Obama asserted at the gay debate last night, than there would be no brouhaha over offering gays marriage rights. It's like saying the difference between being a state Senator and a U.S. Senator is one of semantics.

If you create two classes of relationships you have to be able to explain why one group of people is ineligible for one.

And the only way for civil unions to be remotely on par with marriage is to repeal DOMA. And I didn't hear that last night (admittedly I didn't watch the whole thing, so if any of the top tier talked about repealing DOMA I missed it).

And speaking of repealing DOMA -- why wait. Both Clinton and Obama are in a position to work for that now. What are they waiting for?

Check out LOGO for clips of the debate.

Who Will Lead?

Evan Wolfson gives the lie to the notion that it would be bad electoral politics to be for gay marriage:

• To date, every state legislator, including those running in conservative districts, who voted to support the freedom to marry and ran for re-election won.
• Even state legislators who evolve from opposing to supporting the freedom to marry win; in Massachusetts they showed a 100 percent re-election rate.
• A report published by the Human Rights Campaign after the 2004 election found 94 percent (604 out of 640) of state legislators nationwide who voted in 2004 against discrimination were re-elected in the 2004 election.
• Open-seat races with both a pro-marriage and anti-marriage candidate have most often resulted in victory for the pro-marriage candidate. Pro-marriage candidates won a vast majority, 71 percent, of the races, and none of the pro-marriage candidates lost their races because of their stance on the freedom to marry.

That should be food for thought to gay activists who routinely give ostensibly pro-gay Democrats a pass on the marriage issue.

Read Wolfson's full post on the Democratic responses on the marriage issue in the last debate.

Failing the Test on Marriage Equality in DC

This week we flunked a test in support of marriage equality in DC. The "We" I refer to is the gay community.

Rep. Virgil Goode proposed an amendment that would prevent the DC government from spending federal money on domestic partnership registrations. This was a bone to the fundies, as the DC government has never used fed money for this and it's probably already illegal under DOMA. (I'm going to come back to that point in a minute).

Gay activists in DC who oppose moving forward with full marriage equality in the district will likely point to this as an example of why we should sit on our hands on the issue. They have a point -- no one says passage of marriage equality in the district isn't going to be a battle.

But -- we didn't even try. If there was an effective action alert that went out from any gay organization, from the Log Cabin Republicans to the HRC, I didn't see it. I did see HRC issued a press release after the fact and no doubt a fundraising letter. Likewise, did any gay organization lobby on this measure?

Also flunking this week were 40 democratic Congresscritters who voted against us. Repeat mantra: They take our votes, they take our money, but they won't take a stand...

Regarding DOMA -- Some of the arguments for blocking this funding for domestic partnership registry was that DOMA defines marriage as between man and a woman and spouse as someone of the opposite sex.

Stop the presses! This was about domestic partnerships, not marriage. Or are Republicans acknowledging that a DP and Marriage are essentially the same? If so, let's stop squabbling over semantics and let's just call it marriage.

Social Issues Split Republicans?

The Log Cabiners released poll results of 2000 self-identified Republicans. From the Log Cabin release:

In a remarkable show of unity on a bill that will come up for a vote in the U.S. House this summer, an overwhelming 77% of Republicans believe an employer should not have the right to fire an employee based solely on their sexual orientation. Even among social conservatives, 67% don’t believe an employer should be able to fire someone for being gay.

49% of Republicans believe gays and lesbians should be able to serve openly in the U.S. military, while 42% are opposed.

That's good news in particular, more Republicans think gays should serve openly in the military than should not serve, which certainly puts them ahead of the GOP presidential candidates. However, I wonder what the result would have been if they had asked for support of Don't Ask Don't Tell repeal?

43% of Republicans support either marriage equality or civil unions. 51% oppose all relationship recognition.

One suspects that the actual breakdown shows that there's very little support for marriage equality and most of that 43 percent is for civil unions. Again, what would the result have been if they had tested "gay marriage" or "same sex marriage." Still, it appears to be good news showing a more moderate rank and file than the wingnuts would like us to think.

And then there's this:

The poll shows sharp disagreement on a range of social issues, however Republicans are united on some core priorities:

• 78% believe we should balance the federal budget
• 66% believe the government is too big
• 80% believe the federal government spends too much
• 69% believe taxes are too high and only 1% believe they aren’t high enough

The GOP also is united in its support for enforcing existing immigration laws and waging an aggressive war on terror.

This poll is good news for one would be presidential candidate -- Michael Bloomberg.

Gay Marriage Bill in New York

A marriage equality measure in New York appears poised to pass the state Assembly.

It's expected to pass if it comes up for a vote.

Yay.

Its prospects in the GOP-led state Senate are not as favorable.

Boo. Okay -- we all know Republicans are not our friends on the marriage issue. But consider this:

The Democratic conference, which includes 108 of the chamber's 150 members, has been weighing whether to bring the bill to the floor for the past month. Speaker Sheldon Silver, the Democratic leader from the Lower East Side, was known to be unwilling to have a floor vote unless he were certain that his party had enough votes, at least 76, for passage, and the number of known Democratic supporters has been hovering right near that number for the past several weeks.

Okay -- so after all the time, money and votes gays have consistently given Democrats, why the struggle to cobble together a bare majority to pass legislation essential for gay equal rights within the Democratic party?