Another Republican Demographic Problem: The Gay Vote

Republican opposition to same-sex marriage is costing it yet another demographic group.

We’ve heard much in the past week about the importance of various demographic groups toward President Obama’s re-election victory, ranging from Latinos, to African-Americans, to women, to Asian Americans. Today, The New York Times’ Micah Cohen notes that there’s another group of voters that played a crucial role in President Obama’s victory, and it’s one among which the Republican Party has a tremendous disadvantage:

While President Obama’s lopsided support among Latino and other minority voters has been a focus of post-election analysis, the overwhelming support he received from another growing demographic group — Americans who identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual — has received much less attention.

But the backing Mr. Obama received from gay voters also has a claim on having been decisive. Mitt Romney and Mr. Obama won roughly an equal number of votes among straight voters nationwide, exit polls showed. And, a new study argues, Mr. Romney appears to have won a narrow victory among straight voters in the swing states of Ohio and Florida.

Mr. Obama’s more than three-to-one edge in exit polls among the 5 percent of voters who identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual was more than enough to give him the ultimate advantage, according to the study, by Gary J. Gates of the Williams Institute at the U.C.L.A. School of Law, in conjunction with Gallup. The results are consistent with earlier research on the size and political beliefs of gay voters.

Gay voters are another demographic group — along with African-Americans, Latinos, Asian-Americans and Jews — in which Democrats have been winning big victories over Republicans. Some of the groups are small, but together they make up about one-third of the electorate, forcing Republicans to win large victories among the remaining two-thirds of voters to win elections. By comparison, white evangelical voters, who vote overwhelmingly for Republicans, make up about one-fourth of the electorate and are not growing as rapidly.

As with Latinos and Asian-Americans, the number of voters who identify as gay appears to be growing. Only 1.9 percent of Americans over 65 identify as gay, lesbian or bisexual, according to the Gallup survey, while 3.2 percent of those between 30 and 49 and 6.4 percent of those between 18 and 29 do.

“In the younger population, there is a much wider range in the geography and ethnicity of those who are identifying as L.G.B.T.,” Dr. Gates said, using a common term for lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. That range now extends well beyond major cities and into multiple swing states.

As Republicans plan to reach out to Hispanic and Asian-American voters, another question is whether they would also help themselves by improving their standing among gay voters. Some analysts say Republicans should try to do so, in part to win over some moderate straight voters, while others see any such effort as having more risk than upside.

Research by Patrick J. Egan, a professor of politics and public policy at New York University, suggests that gay voters may prove difficult to bring into the Republican tent. Many gay voters “aren’t swingable because they have liberal positions on a whole bunch of issues besides gay rights,” Dr. Egan said.

Exit polls showed that 76 percent of voters who identified as gay supported Mr. Obama last week, and that 22 percent supported Mr. Romney. Among straight voters, each candidate received 49 percent of the vote.

Christopher Barron, co-founder of the gay conservative group GOProud had this comment about the report:

Mitt Romney won a majority of straight voters in Ohio and Florida but LOST both states because of the gay vote, which went to President Obama by a 76% to 22% margin. The Republican Party must deal with modern political realities, and one of those realities is that LGBT voters make up 5% of the electorate. We can not continue to take a beating among gay voters if we hope to win.

Of course, this will require some significant changes in policy on the right if they are even going to make an effort to try to attract gay, lesbian, and bisexual voters who might be sympathetic to conservative arguments in the economic field. Quite obviously, the opposition to same-sex marriage is going to have to go first off all. Given the fact that support for marriage equality is now the majority position in the United States, though, this would seem to be smart politics as much as anything else. In addition to being a necessary prerequisite for even beginning to open a bridge to the gay community, it’s also something that the GOP is going to have to do if it is going to have any hope at all of becoming relevant among younger voters, for whom support for same-sex marriage is as axiomatic as the sun rising in the morning.  We’re likely even past the time where the federalism argument — that each state should be allowed to decide whether same-sex marriage should be legal — isn’t going to be enough for the GOP anymore. After all, why should Americans in Alabama not be entitled to the same rights as Americans in New York, Maine, Iowa, or any of the other states where same-sex marriage has been legalized? Intellectual conservatives will come up with a dozen arguments to answer that question, but I doubt that a single one of them would sell in a political context. Face it Republicans, we’ve crossed the Rubicon. Same-sex marriage is going to be the law of the land sooner or later, and you can either try to stand in the middle of the creek trying to stop the flood that’s approaching you, or you can accept reality.

A policy shift like this is going to be difficult for the Republican Party. The history of opposition to same-sex marriage, while relatively recent in an historical context, is fairly well ingrained in party orthodoxy and any change in that policy is going to be hard for Evangelicals and social conservatives to accept. In the end, though, the GOP is going to have to accept simple political reality. The war against same-sex marriage is over, and the opposition has lost. The final surrender may still be years away, but it is going to come, and there’s no rational reason for a national political party to be on the losing side of this debate. Besides which, Republicans can’t really afford to piss off any more demographic groups at this point.

FILED UNDER: 2012 Election, Gender Issues, US Politics, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,
Doug Mataconis
About Doug Mataconis
Doug Mataconis held a B.A. in Political Science from Rutgers University and J.D. from George Mason University School of Law. He joined the staff of OTB in May 2010 and contributed a staggering 16,483 posts before his retirement in January 2020. He passed far too young in July 2021.

Comments

  1. grumpy realist says:

    Considering that the Log Cabin Republicans still vote R in spite of the whole marriage thing, it’s obviously not ALL the gays…..

    But the number of masochistic self-hating gays is probably going to be small….

  2. legion says:

    Well, when you start by demonizing the opposition to the point where you can’t even hold a rational conversation without calling them Communist, terror-sympathizing Marxists, your next logical step is to demonize every group that supports or even has any common attributes with that opposition. Gays = evil, blacks = lazy thugs, Hispanics = job-stealers, women = overemotional property, poor people = moochers, workers = union chumps, etc.

    At some point, you run out of people to kick out of your little clubhouse, no?

  3. stonetools says:

    A policy shift like this is going to be difficult for the Republican Party. The history of opposition to same-sex marriage, while relatively recent in an historical context, is fairly well ingrained in party orthodoxy and any change in that policy is going to be hard for Evangelicals and social conservatives to accept.

    So in order for the Republican Party to compete for the gay vote they would have to become…not Republican-sort of Democratic lite.

    David Limbaugh has responded to your analysis. According to him and many conservatives, the proper response of conservatives to rejection at the polls should be to double down on the crazy.

    There will always be those who stubbornly cling to the misguided notion that Republicans could build a bigger tent through caving on 90 percent of their supposed principles and offering only Democrat lite. But the only chance we have for a Republican resurgence is if Republicans return to their conservative roots and offer a real, stark alternative to the unfolding Obama destruction.

    If they roll over instead of vigorously opposing this madness, they’ll have no legitimacy to mount an alternative case in 2010 and 2012. Thus, pragmatism versus principles is a false choice. It’s more pragmatic, not to mention more honorable, to stick to your principles.

    The final surrender may still be years away, but it is going to come, and there’s no rational reason for a national political party to be on the losing side of this debate.

    ” Rational reason”, eh? I got a big laugh out of that.

  4. Mary G says:

    So much of it is tone…just dropping the hysteria about the elemental doom of civilization resulting from the instituting of civil gay marriage would help a lot. Maggie Gallagher said that same-sex marriage would lead to a fundamental redefinition not just of marriage but of religious liberty and citizenship. I’ve read blog commenters who say everyone in America will go to hell if we allow people to marry others of the same gender.

    Dropping DADT hasn’t resulted in any of the threatened harm to the military. This kind of over-reaction just erodes the right’s credibility on any number of other social issues as well.

  5. Gromitt Gunn says:

    The gay thing is, one would think, one of the more obvious things for the GOP to just move past. We’re the “other” group most likely to have grown up in white, conservative families, after all. And nice polite middle of the road suburban white people expect more and more that their LGBT kids, grand kids, nieces, and nephews should/will have the same life opportunities as their hetero counterparts.

  6. Phillip says:

    this will require some significant changes in policy

    Just policy? Have you not heard the rhetoric???
    @Mary G:

    So much of it is tone

    Spot on. How ironic that the evangelical hatred of homosexuals could stand in the way of their Dominionist fantasies. How deliciously ironic.

  7. Janis Gore says:

    As they express themselves now, the movement conservatives have such a crabbed view of their country and the world that I can’t relate to it in any way.

  8. stonetools says:

    So much of it is tone…just dropping the hysteria about the elemental doom of civilization resulting from the instituting of civil gay marriage would help a lot.

    Talk of tone doesn’t quite get to conservatives’ position on gays. Evangelical conservatives really do believe that homosexuals are evil perverts who deliberately indulge their sick passions in defiance of the Bible and settled morality. Since they truly believe this, they are unlikely to moderate their opposition to gay rights, even if they moderate their tone.
    I would prefer, frankly, that they would be open and honest about their feelings about gays, rather than cloak it in dog whistle code words, the way racists do. It would be unpleasant, but at least we will know where they stand.

  9. mantis says:

    Many gay voters “aren’t swingable because they have liberal positions on a whole bunch of issues besides gay rights,” Dr. Egan said.

    This is true, but other voters who aren’t as liberal on other issues, like economic policy for instance, are turned off by a Republican Party that is pro-discrimination and anti-science. I myself should be a promising potential convert for the Republican Party. White, mid-30s professional with rising income and home ownership who grew up with sensible Republican parents. But in fact I am thoroughly repulsed by today’s Republican Party, which specializes in demonizing my friends, coworkers, and strangers whom I know are decent human beings in order to satisfy a particularly rabid, racist base of largely evangelical voters.

    This is why the problems the Republican Party faces cannot be solved by trying to appeal to these groups they fare so poorly with; the party has built its entire existence around a core that despises all of those groups to which they need to appeal. Unless you can really convince evangelicals that evolution is real and humans can negatively impact the Earth in ways that Jesus will not swoop in and solve, that gays are not abominations to be shunned from society, that any activity outside their sexual mores does not need to be outlawed, and that every sperm is not sacred, well you’ve got yourself a systemic and intractable problem for the future, GOP. Good luck with that.

  10. grumpy realist says:

    Also as more gays grow up being accepted by their relatives and neighbors, the more said relatives and neighbors are going to be upset if their gay friends/relatives aren’t treated equitably in society. Heck–if I have gay friends and empathize with them, I’m going to be really ticked off if they don’t have the same opportunity to marry that I have.

  11. bookdragon says:

    @grumpy realist: Exactly. Not only do they lose that 5% of the population, but a great many of their friends and relatives, not to mention all the people who just plain think discrimination is wrong.

    I remember Paul Tsongas, back when he was running for the Dem nomination saying that supporting rights for gays and lesbians was probably going to hurt his chances, but he couldn’t do otherwise.

    During a Q&A at the college I attended, he told us that the issue was the civil rights issue for our generation and those on the other side of it would someday have to be ashamed when their kids and grandkids asked how they could possibly have thought that way.

    That is coming to pass. In fact, it’s at the heart of what Obama (who is my age) said about why he changed his mind – the look in his daughters’ eyes when they asked him about his position.

  12. anjin-san says:

    The Republicans don’t have a “demographics problem.” They have a “we think half the citizens of this country are scum” problem. It’s a serious problem for people who would govern, and who need to win elections to be in a position to govern.

  13. michael reynolds says:

    If you start with the GOP then subtract all the homophobes, immigrant-bashers and racists, you know what you have left? The Libertarian Party + Neocons.

  14. Herb says:

    I think the Republican party is going to have problems with gay people until all the gay people (and their families) they’ve hurt over the years are dead. As the son of a lesbian, I will not forget how devoted they were to making my mother a second class citizen even as the rest of society was opening their tolerant arms to her.

  15. swbarnes2 says:

    @mantis:

    This is true, but other voters who aren’t as liberal on other issues, like economic policy for instance, are turned off by a Republican Party that is pro-discrimination and anti-science.

    That’s true of course, but the rejection is more than just emotional disgust. If you are 18 year old who knows that s/he doesn’t know much about complicated economic or foreign policy questions, and you see one party is absolutely wrong about the most obvious of questions, like gay marriage, or evolution, it’s just logical to assume that those same guys don’t know f*ck-all about the hard stuff either. If Republican ideology leads them to be so wildly afield of good sense or basic human decency on those questions, it’s would be irresponsible to think that the same ideology leads to good policy in other areas.

  16. de stijl says:

    Roughly 30% of my immediate social circle is gay, lesbian or bi. If you spend inordinate amounts of time as a political party demonizing them and preventing them from operating as a full citizens -of literally making them into second-class citizens, I will never, ever, ever vote for your party.

    Expand that to how the you have treated and talked about black and brown and female Americans, and now I will never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever (infinity) vote for you. Pretending that voter suppression is protecting the sanctity of the voting booth makes me want to puke.

    I am a straight, white male who cannot in good conscience ever pull the lever for a Republican.

  17. Laurence Bachmann says:

    The idea that moderating remarks on gay marriage will suddenly make the GOP appealing to people like me is risible. It assumes I don’t despise them for denying evolution. Or hold them in contempt for pretending climate change is a hoax. It assumes I will someday think old white priests are the best guardians of a woman’s reproductive system.

    The only way Republicans can appeal to me and the gays I know is to stop being Republicans. Doubt it is going to happen anytime soon. Which is also fine with me–their slow, inexorable demise is proving to be quite entertaining.

  18. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @michael reynolds: You really think that there are no racists and immigrant bashers among the Neocons and Libertarians? You are much more generous than I am, then.

  19. Just 'nutha ig'rant cracker says:

    @Just ‘nutha ig’rant cracker: I should have added homophobes, too. sorry…

  20. Vast Variety says:

    I’ve said it before, I’d probably be a Republican if I didn’t have to worry about them trying to lock me up in some camp and trying to “cure” me. I’m Gay get over you self.

  21. michael reynolds says:

    @Just ‘nutha ig’rant cracker:

    Well, I think this: the Libertarian Party has ridiculous ideas. But they combine the crazy with a willingness to live and let live. They’re unrealistic, but they aren’t theocrats or semi-fascists or warmongers. Also they have the virtue of being politically impotent and harmless.

  22. Crusty Dem says:

    @michael reynolds:

    I wouldn’t argue with you about the libertarians, but the Neocons? No way.

  23. superdestroyer says:

    It is impossible for the more conservative party to get a significant portion of the LBGT voters. If the Republicans came out for federal recognition of gay marriage, then the LBGT community would just move the goal post and create another issue where social conservatives would disagree with them.

    Any conservative party that chases after the LBGT vote is a conservative party is is destimed for extinction. There is no way the more conservative party is going to attract LGBT when there is a party on the left that will offer more.

    I would describe most gays as the clever voters: they think they can get all of the benefits of a massive government that functions as a nanny state while avoidng the down sides. Gays see themselves as the order gives in the future and will never vote for a party that should opposed to an ever expanding government and increasing power to the order givers.

  24. Just Me says:

    I’ve said it before, I’d probably be a Republican if I didn’t have to worry about them trying to lock me up in some camp and trying to “cure” me.

    And this is just stupid.

  25. NBH says:

    It’s rather amusing to see Republican wedge issues (anti-gay, anti-abortion rights, anti-nonchristian) biting them in the ass and leaving them little room to maneuver without shattering the entire GOP party.

    The republicans also lost the rather large and growing non-religious segment by large margins. For some reason, I’m not inclined to vote for candidates and a party which doesn’t even dog-whistle but flat out talks of non-Christians being un-American, not true citizens, and should leave “God’s country”.

  26. Rob in CT says:

    The “gay vote” is, in itself, tiny, right?

    It’s more about straight people who won’t vote GOP because they think the GOP’s stance vis-a-vis gays is bigotted.

  27. alanmt says:

    @Just Me:

    I’ve said it before, I’d probably be a Republican if I didn’t have to worry about them trying to lock me up in some camp and trying to “cure” me.

    And this is just stupid.

    It depends on whether you are talking about the first or second half of the sentence. As to the second half, no. Homosexuality was a jailable offense in some states in this country less than ten years ago. A tea party legislator was trying to pass a law against aggravated homosexuality to get around Laurence v Texas in my state last legislative session in 2011, providing for ten eyars in jail for recruiting people into homosexuality. Minors were being sent against their will to curethegay facilities more recently than that – remember Zach Stark from 2005? I know a man who was coerced into shock therapy for homosexuality as a young adult by the mormon church less than 20 years ago as a condition for remaining at BYU.

  28. OzarkHillbilly says:

    Equal rights for all? The GOP?

    BWAAAHHAAAHHAAAHAAAAHAAAAAHAAAAHAAHAAHAAAHAAAA…….

  29. stonetools says:

    @Rob in CT:

    The “gay vote” is, in itself, tiny, right?

    I’d also say that it’s not just about the votes, its about the money. Gays tend to have more disposable income to contribute to political campaigns.Gays tend to have an outside influence in the media.

    Its also why its worth it to appeal to Jews and Asians-its about the fundraising and mind-space, not just the numbers of votes.
    However you slice it, though, its irrational to persecute them.

  30. Gromitt Gunn says:

    @Just Me: Really? You don’t think GLBTs get admitted to facilities to “cure” them, especially in more socially conservative environments? Could you please send me directions to Shiny Happy Puppies and Unicorns Land?

  31. Rafer Janders says:

    @Rob in CT:

    It’s more about straight people who won’t vote GOP because they think the GOP’s stance vis-a-vis gays is bigotted.

    Exactly. On paper, at least, I’d be an ideal target for the GOP: a white, upper-income finance professional in the highest tax bracket. But since one of my siblings is gay, that issue alone is enough to ensure that neither I nor any of my other family members would ever vote Republican. (Of course, in fact there are hundreds of other reasons I’d never vote Republican. But still).

  32. J-Dub says:

    If we get the economy back on track during President Obama’s second term and the GOP loses that argument as well, where the hell would they stand then?

    All they have left at that point is the bible and they’re going to need it.

  33. stonetools says:

    If you look at Doug’s post and Superdestroyer’s response, you see the split between the ” good conservative” and the real or “base conservative”.
    Doug as the “good conservative” argues for rational treatment of gays because there’s no good reason to antagonize them, and besides, the key goals for conservatives should be low taxes, economic freedom, etc. An anti-gay stance is irrelevant to that.
    SD says its not worth it to appeal to gays because gays will just keep on agitating for equal rights, or as he puts it, expansion of the nanny state. IOW, gays will be exactly like those brown skinned minorities who keep on running to the federal government for help instead of staying in their place, and enduring unequal treatment.
    I expect that Doug and James will continue to argue that Republicans should be “good conservatives” -and will hold their nose and continue to vote for, and support, candidates who cater to the “base conservatives”.

  34. mantis says:

    @Just Me:

    And this is just stupid.

    You obviously know nothing about this. In fact, you know less than nothing. When you find yourself in such a situation, you should keep your fool mouth shut.

  35. Spartacus says:

    Doug wrote: “[Appealing to LGBTs] will require some significant changes in policy on the right if they are even going to make an effort to try to attract gay, lesbian, and bisexual voters who might be sympathetic to conservative arguments in the economic field. Quite obviously, the opposition to same-sex marriage is going to have to go first off all. Given the fact that support for marriage equality is now the majority position in the United States, though, this would seem to be smart politics as much as anything else.”

    Doug says the GOP could have success if it dropped its opposition to SSM because support for SSM marriage is now the majority position in the U.S. He also says that LGBTs might then be sympathetic to conservative economic arguments. The GOP’s economic arguments are just as wrong and its SSM arguments, its immigration arguments and its foreign policy arguments. As soon as Romney got the nomination this entire election was supposed to be about the economy and Romney began campaigning on the same failed GOP policies of cutting taxes and relaxing regulations. He got absolutely no where in the polls because voters can see that it’s all BS.

    Most of the people who believe this silly idea that Hispanics and LGBTs will vote for the GOP as soon as the GOP stops being hostile to them are the ones who alienated Hispanics and LGBTs in the first place. There are many insurmountable reasons people don’t vote for the GOP. Hostility to minorities, women and LGBTs is only part of it. Doug pointed out that the majority of the country now supports SSM, but name one single major policy issue on which the GOP holds the majority view. There aren’t any.

    The problem with the GOP is not that it can’t appeal to blacks, Hispanics, women and LGBTs. The GOPs problem is that it can only appeal to voters who are guided by Southern white culture and long-time tribalists like James Joyner, David Frum, Kathleen Parker, etc.

  36. Dave Anderson says:

    Agreed, it is not about the votes of only gay/lebsian/bi/trans individuals, and their families, but about the votes of their friends.

    As I mentioned on the election night watching thread, I was at a watch party with a bunch of friends including 2 GLBT couples who had been together longer than wife and I have been married. They broke down crying when they saw Maryland called for gay marriage.

    One of the couples should be prime Republican persuasion targets (white, male, making enough between the two of them to be impacted by the top marginal rates, raised religious and still have not walked away from church….), and they will never vote Republican because they know who hates their being.

  37. James in LA says:

    @superdestroyer: Gays see themselves as the order gives in the future

    This wins Most Paranoid Comment of the Day. I have come to conclude superdestroyer is in fact a dated satire engine written in LISP called EyoreOnline that dispenses ridiculous theories in order to see how awake we all are. Regrettably, its master long ago graduated from high school, and so the software is left to play with itself.

  38. swbarnes2 says:

    @stonetools:

    If you look at Doug’s post and Superdestroyer’s response, you see the split between the ” good conservative” and the real or “base conservative”.

    If they both vote for the same Republican candidates, then they aren’t different. (And yes, I know that Doug voted for Republican Gary Johnson and not Republican Romney for president, but that hardly makes a dime of difference to my point).

    It doesn’t matter what’s in their hearts. What matters are the policies their candidates put forth. Doug voted with no regrets for Bob McDonnell, who opposes same-sex marriage, and helped write the RNC platform, which opposes it as well. Doug is not on the side of the angels here, and neither is anyone else who votes for Republicans.

  39. Robert A. George says:

    So, in addition to all those various benefits Obama supposedly gave blacks, Hispanics and young people, add “wedding gifts” to gays as a reason Romney lost the election!

  40. Davebo says:

    @michael reynolds:

    Well, I think this: the Libertarian Party has ridiculous ideas. But they combine the crazy with a willingness to live and let live.

    No Mike. They sleep at night pretending that were so but in reality not so much. In the end, Libertarians are just good old Republicans ashamed to admit it. See indefinite confinement without charges filed, state sanctioned torture, etc.

    Remember the last post Doug made decrying that? Me neither. So shut up and cut my taxes. I’m a Libertarian damnit!

  41. stonetools says:

    @swbarnes2:

    Let’s face it, Doug and James might moan and bitch about movement conservatives. But by their support they enable them and that’s what counts. That doesn’t mean that Doug and James aren’t nice guys. I’d love to have a beer with them. But they are enablers.
    Now what do Doug’s fine words about outreach to the gay community mean if you are a gay person in Virginia who might want to get married or enter into a domestic partnership, or even seek protection against job discrimination?. Absolutely nothing.

    Gay and lesbian state workers in Virginia are no longer specifically protected against discrimination, thanks to a little-noticed change made by new Gov. Bob McDonnell.

    McDonnell (R) on Feb. 5 signed an executive order that prohibits discrimination “on the basis of race, sex, color, national origin, religion, age, political affiliation, or against otherwise qualified persons with disabilities,” as well as veterans.

    It rescinds the order that Gov. Tim Kaine signed Jan. 14, 2006 as one of his first actions. After promising a “fair and inclusive” administration in his inaugural address, Kaine (D) added veterans to the non-discrimination policy – and sexual orientation.

    I’m hoping for change, though. Next year Ken Cuccinelli will most likely be the Republican nominee for Governor of Virginia. He is as wingnut as they come, and hardline anti-gay .
    Will they vote for him? Or will they vote for the vote for the gay rights supporter, who will be a Democrat? We will see.

  42. Just Me says:

    Please link me to a specific statement by a GOP office holder who advocates internment camps for homosexuals.

    Discrimination is one thing, but believing that any legitimate office holder or GOP politician is in favor of internment camps is nothing more than hyperbole.

  43. Vast Variety says:
  44. An Interested Party says:

    The denial of Just Me and people like her of the incredibly ugly homophobes and bigots in their midst looks similar to the denial in the Romney camp and among many of his supporters of why he lost the election…poor sad Republicans denying reality…oh well, many of them deny evolution too, so this should be expected…

  45. superdestroyer says:

    @stonetools:

    The idea that the more conservative party can ever appeal to homosexuals is laughable. As many of the posters here have already written, the conservatives have already committed the unforgivable crime of not supporting homosexuals vigorously enough.

    The idea that if conservatives just not whatever homosexuals want (such as affirmative action, quotas for homosexuals and giving homosexuals the ability to attack anyone for thought crimes) will make homosexuals support conservatives is insane.

    Homosexuals will never moderate their stance and will never compromise with anyone that does not give them whatever they want. Any conservative who believes that he can negotiates with the organized homosexual community is a fool.

  46. David says:

    @superdestroyer: You are so full of crap. If the republicans put forth candidates that were not bible beating, anti-science, bigots that advocated a fiscally responsible position and got away from (insert group name here) is bad, they would have a shot at my vote. As it is, all they put forth is failed fiscal policies from the past and social positions of the ancient past.

    Oh yeah, and apparently, according to the republican platform, my almost 16 year relationship with my partner doesn’t deserve to be recognized by the state or the feds. I’m not even talking taxes and social security, I’m talking about end of life decisions, hospital visitation, home ownership, and a whole host of other non-monetary items that married couples take for granted that, even with the requisite legal paperwork, we are not guaranteed. Throw in insurance, estate planning, adoption, etc., and yeah, the republican party makes me feel like a second class citizen. And before you make some crazy accusation concerning us being takers or something, I spent 6 years in the military, he spent a number of years teaching. We have both contributed to this country, me by helping to protect it, him by trying to educate our youth. What have you done?