Minority Issues in the U.S. Presidential Election

Gays and the GOP: Over for good?

Catching a flight out of San Francisco early this morning after a lovely fall holiday, I picked up a Chronicle and read a interesting article about the reconciliation (or lack thereof) of gays and the Republican Party. The article discusses the failure of an initially successful and influential group of gay Republican leaders who came together to better the relationship and image of the LGBT community and the GOP. You can check article out in full at the SFChronicle Web site, but I will give you an overview.

The authors explain how a small but prominent group of gay activists brought President Bush to the drawing table, spoke to him heart to heart and got the president to deliver on several of their requests. For example, the article sites Bush's decision to keep Clinton's anti-discrimination executive order, despite massive pressure from conservatives to repeal it. It also points out Bush's more than 40 gay or lesbian appointments in governmental positions, a record for a Republican. (Surprisingly, these are just two of about five examples the story talks about) Things for this small group were going great until a huge dark cloud came looming over their heads. The cloud was a little issue called gay marriage.

This changed everything. Bush received monstrous threats from conservative religious groups to support a constitutional amendment banning it, and he buckled. And by doing so, the group (they call themselves Austin 12 because the original meeting w/ Bush was in Austin) had to abandon their new found ally and accept failure. The article takes about how the individual members of Austin 12 could not go against their conscience. They each took Bush's support of an amendment denying them civil rights as a personal blow to the heart of their movement. And they quit.

Their are many aspects of this situation we could analyze and pick apart, but I think the main point here is that this group was trying a new approach to the same old political game and seriously trying to make progressive changes. Whether you agree with their political ideologies or not, the article points out how with compromise and work the government can address minority issues and be successful. But the majority truly wins out. In this case, it was the Christian conservatives that are deathly afraid of change that won and the minorities again were left by the waste side. The religious right lobby forced Bush to make a decision -- loose 4 million votes in November or appease 1 million gays? President Bush chose the majority, surprise, surprise.

posted by Leigh Shelton @ 1:42 PM