Gay? You Are Not Welcome!

The Republican Party is NOT, I repeat NOT a big tent party. And if you are gay, the only value you have in the eyes of the Republican Party is as a tool for fund raising and rallying the bigots. So I just have to ask, why on earth would any gay or lesbian American even want to be a Republican? And I am not the only one wondering this. Gene Stone over at the Huffington Post is wondering the same thing. In his article, The Gay Republican: Oxymoron, or Just Moron, he so rightly asks why any gay or lesbian would choose a party that so loathes him/her?

He begins his article this way:

Given that it's spring of an election year, one of the most beloved of all Republican rites is in full bloom: gay bashing. It's not enough that the state republican parties have specifically told gay men and women they are not welcome in the party, or that one by one, they are trying to amend state constitutions to prohibit gay marriage (which in most of these states is already banned by law); U.S. Senate Republicans have announced that they are planning, once more, to argue the need for a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.

This is a debate more urgent, they suggest, than the war in Iraq, immigration, education, or terrorism.

What's different this year is that it's not just the right-wing Republicans doing the bashing. The latest news is that the most gay-friendly of Republicans, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, is campaigning for arch-homophobes Senator Rick Santorum and Iowa's gubernatorial candidate Jim Nussle. In fact, the few non-right wing Republicans left in the party are all out on the campaign trail, avidly supporting the most extreme anti-gay rhetoric of their fellow party members.

So once more, in response to the new gay bashing, comes the old question: Why would any gay man or woman belong to a party that has stated, over and over, as clearly as can be, without equivocation, that he or she is not welcome?

And I would like to take Gene’s point one step further and ask why any parent, grandparent, sibling, or friend of a gay or lesbian would want to be affiliated with a party that so despises someone they care about? And for those who specifically vote Republican because of their anti-gay bigotry, watch out. The Republican tent is shrinking. Unless you are a rich, white, heterosexual, Dobson/Robertson/Falwell Christian male you could end up being pushed out of their little pup tent next.

Hat tip to Pam's House Blend for pointing me to the article.
Cartoon by Beyond the Punchline