Right-wing anti-gay activists threaten GOP in 2016
- By Mitchell Blatt
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E-mail China.org.cn, October 25, 2014
Another Texas Republican and presidential contender, Governor Rick Perry, compared homosexuality to alcoholism this June. In 2010, Colorado Senate candidate Ken Buck mentioned alcoholism in a sentence about homosexuality. He lost the race.
Other social issues that Christian conservatives insist on taking absurd positions cost them other races. In Delaware in 2010, Republicans nominated Christine O'Donnell, who had previously been an activist against sexual self-stimulation, for Senate. A number of candidates think abortion should be illegal in any and all cases - including rape - and 2012 Missouri Republican Senate candidate Todd Akin even said that pregnancy rarely occurs in the case of "legitimate rape."
With such crazies having a prominent spot in the party, it is no wonder that 62 percent of Americans think the Republicans are "out of touch with [the] American people" and 52 percent think they are "too extreme," according to a Pew Research poll from February 2013.
The Republican Party of late has done a lot more for radical Christians than they have done for it. After having nominated so many lunatics and losing for years, the Christian right owes a debt to the GOP, not the other way around.
Some Republicans are finally seeing the light. A reasonable conservative would have to realize now that even if they oppose gay marriage personally, they can't do so politically. Since the ruling, Wisconsin governor and possible 2016 presidential candidate Scott Walker dropped his state's opposition of gay marriage. "For us, it's over in Wisconsin," he said. "The federal courts have ruled that this decision by this court of appeals is the law of the land and we will be upholding it."
But Christian conservative activists won't let the party take the reasonable route. Local activists in Iowa, an important state in the Republican primary, and others like Huckabee are trying to push the party to the right. Previous party primaries, where far-right kooks like Michelle Bachmann, Herman Cain, and Rick Santorum have competed, have caused the moderate candidates to swing further to the right. (In 2012, Santorum even said that state governments should have the power to ban contraception.) That is likely to happen again in 2016, when gay marriage will certainly be a controversial issue, and Santorum and Huckabee won't shut up.
On the Democratic side, presumptive nominee Hillary Clinton has come out in favor of legalizing gay marriage, as will, presumably, all of the other contenders. Their position is in line with that of the American people. As it stands now, the Republican Party may be headed for defeat in 2016, and they have people like Huckabee to blame.
Want to leave the party? You would only be doing them a favor.
Mitchell Blatt is the producer of ChinaTravelWriter.com and an editor at a map magazine in Nanjing.
Opinion articles reflect the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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