Tim Pawlenty Continues To Pander To The Anti-Gay Right

Last month, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty told the American Family Association’s Bryan Fischer that he would be open to reinstating the ban on gays in the military. Now, he’s told another social conservative group that he’d consider withholding the funds necessary to implement repeal of DADT if he were President:

PAWLENTY: We have to pay great deference, I think to those combat units, their sentiments and their leaders. That’s one of the reasons why I said we shouldn’t have repealed Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell and I would support reinstatement.

TP: And rescinding the funds for implementation, implementation of repeal?

PAWLENTY: That would be a reasonable step as well.

I don’t know if Pawlenty actually believes this, or if he’s just pandering to the small minority of social conservatives who opposed repealing Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Whatever the case, he’s fast on his way to making himself irrelevant to me in the race for President.

FILED UNDER: 2012 Election, 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. Franklin says:

    You have to admit, Doug, that Republicans planning to run against Obama are damned if they do, damned if they don’t with respect to winning the primaries and then the general. Pawlenty’s clearly decided this is his optimum path. But even she-who-should-not-be-named has made some recent overtures towards teh gheys.

  2. Muffler says:

    This is all about social conservatives pandering to it’s base. Nothing is really served here and for the cost per hour of each congressmen I say we would be better off outsourcing the jobs to some unemployed engineers in the US. I think it would be more cost efficient and provide a high quality of work.