Subscribe to Breaking NewsRuby-Sachs: Log Cabin Republicans and the next election
I’m confused by Log Cabin Republicans.
I see their booths at gay events, I even became friends with one or two in law school, but still, the idea of voting for a party that works against your equal rights amazed me. So I looked them up.
According to their website, Log Cabin Republicans have a, “firm belief in the principles of limited government, individual liberty, individual responsibility, free markets and a strong national defense.” Moreover, they believe in working within the Republican Party to bring about equal treatment for gays and lesbians.
Perhaps a foolhardy effort, but then again, working within the United States government for equal rights for Black people or immigrants seemed pretty ridiculous at a time in history too.
So let’s take them at their word: they are fiscal conservatives who perhaps believe in a strict construction of the constitution and a cap on judicial activism. They also feel that the best way to achieve equal rights is to work with those who wish to oppose them.
I still have one problem. The next election may choose four years of economic and social policy, but it will also make one other important choice that will affect the rights of gays and lesbians for at least three generations to come: Supreme Court appointments.
Today, the Court has four liberal justices, Ginsburg, Stevens, Souter and Breyer. And four conservative appointments who tow the party line, Alito, Roberts, Scalia and Thomas. Kennedy, a conservative appointment who waffles, has often been the necessary vote to tip the balance in the liberals’ favor.
He was in the most recent Roe v. Wade challenge and again in Lawrence v. Texas.
This is important to understand, Lawrence v. Texas is the same decision that allowed Log Cabin Republicans to have sex at all, legally, in many of their home states.
The problem is that these judges age, and two of them, Stevens and Ginsburg, are aching to retire (literally).
If Obama becomes president he would, at least, be able to maintain the status quo, maybe put a woman or two up there, and create a few more years of an even fight for those hoping for progressive judgments.
If McCain wins, two conservative appointments would shift the majority, leave us with six conservative votes, and little hope for the rights of gay men to engage in sexual intercourse legally.
It’s not just gay men who will suffer. The right of women to enforce the Violence Against Women Act will be in jeopardy. As well, habeas corpus, that age old right to know what crime you are charged with committing, is also at risk. Not to mention abortion. We would have a conservative majority in all the unforeseen legal challenges the Court may choose to adjudicate in the future.
This president can do whatever temporary decision making it wants and nothing will have such a lasting effect as the choice of the next two justices of the Supreme Court.
Log Cabin Republicans may advocate gradual legislative change, but when the very act of love that defines your personal identity (and membership in your group, I assume) is threatened, perhaps sacrificing a few years of small government is worth it.
JohnM: I fail to follow the court’s reasoning. If the victim is emotionally harmed by the crime that is what civil law is for.
While I would agree that Obama probably needs some of the homophobic preachers on his side to win the election, I still don’t get why the dems think it’s OK now to support faith-based initiatives now. Typically, they just end up being ways to filter taxpayers’ money into pet projects run by Christian churches. Other religions are generally ignored and even so it’s a grave step of ignoring the first amendment anyway.
Kari,
Justifications for harsher punishments for hate crimes focus on the notion that hate crimes cause greater individual and societal harm.
In Wisconsin v. Mitchell, the Supreme Court of the United States unanimously wrote that “bias-motivated crimes are more likely to provoke retaliatory crimes, inflict distinct emotional harms on their victims, and incite community unrest…. The State’s desire to redress these perceived harms provides an adequate explanation for its penalty-enhancement provision over and above mere disagreement with offenders’ beliefs or biases. As Blackstone said long ago, ‘it is but reasonable that, among crimes of different natures, those should be most severely punished which are the most destructive of the public safety and happiness.”
When the core of a person’s identity is attacked, the degradation and dehumanization is especially severe, and additional emotional and physiological problems are likely to result. Society then, in turn, can suffer from the disempowerment of a group of people.
Trace,
Your question as to why Obama allows a few anti-gay religious people to support him can best be summed up by realizing Obama cannot win this election without winning in key battleground states which requires some support from religious Americans in those states. Among the states in play are Colorado Indiana, North Carolina, Georgia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Florida, New Mexico, Virginia and Wisconsin. The White Catholic vote is very much in play especially in places like Pennsylvania. While conservative Evangelicals will never vote for Obama, he can win over moderate and liberal Evangelicals, Catholics and even some conservative mainline Protestants.
Obama has also publicly disassociated himself from McClurkin’s anti gay remarks and repeatedly speaks about LGBT equality before conservative black religious audiences. No other presidential candidate has done this. Prof Kmiec is campaigning for Obama because Kmiec believes Obama’s election will lead to fewer abortions. Kmiec knows Obama is strongly pro-chioce, but thinks Obama’s emphasis on personal responsibility will lead to fewer unwanted pregnancies. All major pro-choice and LGBT groups (except Log cabin) are enthusiasctcally supporting Obama. Just because a few religious homophobes support Obama is no reason not to vote for him. Obama is not going to change his public positions on either choice or LBGT rights as prominently outlined on his website and as he stated on the nationally televised LOGO debate, or he risks being branded a fickel flip flopper in 2012.
Obama also has to overcome the absurd charges by the McCain campaign and McCain supporters that Obama pals around with terrorists, is an Arab, is a stealth Muslim and worse. Of course he needs to reach out to the majority Christian population in battleground states to get elected. Obama is our friend and we need to now give him the benefit of our votes unless and until he proves otherwise.
I also want to respond to your posotion on ENDA but will leave that to amother day.
Finally, as I wrote earlier, compared to McCains cast of horrible supporters, Obama’s is small time.
AR: There is still a faction within the Republican party that favors those things. However, like the Democratic party there are different factions within the GOP and unfortunately the one in control right now doesn’t really have the strong belief in either fiscal conservatism or small government.
That said, for the people who advocate for those ideas, it’d be much easier to pull the Republican party back in that direction than it would be to pull the Democratic party towards it, so I imagine to them it seems like a better use of time and energy to go after the GOP.
I’m still trying to figure out this “fiscal conservative” and “limited government” that the Republicans cry for. Call me stupid, but I would not consider our last few years one of fiscal conservation or limited government.
Wayne: Yes…yes…and yes….
It’s called a “deal-killer”.
Menstruator: Obama is a politician. He’s not stupid. He realizes that keeping the gay community at arms-length helps him get votes from moderate evangelicals, a base that has been identified by both candidates as quite important for either of their hypothetical victories.
JohnM: Yes, there needs to be another action (in particular, an illegal action, i.e. a crime) for a hate crime to be prosecuted. The crime gets prosecuted, the person goes to jail.
Whatever biases the fool may have had to motivate the action are irrelevant. The only legally significant detail is whether the crime in question was indeed committed.
I’d like to also point out that the AFA has not been entirely sucessful in its bigoted campaign. Its attack on P&G was a complete and utter failure by any measurement.
T’s opinion: I’ve been called an imposter before. Apparently some people (yourself included) can’t even fathom that another lgbt individual might have different political views than them.
Coty Smith: Republicans aren’t rich. Neither major party really correlates well to the purported class struggle. There are rich republicans, but there are also rich democrats. There are an overwhelming number of poor and middle class in both parties.
LCRs are, like other republicans, as quite varied by social class. Support of the ideas of limited government and free markets isn’t a rich vs. poor issue.
The fact that Democrats often propose policies that might be economically advantageous to the poor does not mean that the poor themselves always go out and vote for Democrats.