Playing the Gay card, again

Yesterday's House Judiciary Committee vote to kill a referred measure enshrining discrimination against gays and lesbians (i.e. barring gays and lesbians from ever marrying) into our state's constitution reflects how integral religious conservatives are to the GOP's political fortunes.

The only reason for pursuing such a ballot measure is to agitate religious conservatives to get out and vote Republican.  This same strategy was deployed in 2004 to mobilize religious conservatives in places like Ohio, where Bush narrowly won. 

These recurring, anti-gay ballot measures are clever and effective tools that allow evangelical churches to become part of the GOP's GOTV operations without technically crossing the line prohibiting tax-exempt entities from openly advocating for a particular candidate.

Colorado already defines marriage as between one man and one woman, thanks to a so-called "Defense of Marriage Act" supported in 2000 by Governor Owens (apparently this act was insufficient to defend his marriage).

How ironic that this latest measure to "defend marriage" would have been signed by our separated governor before going to the voters? 

Let's be honest, these never-endeing attempts to scapegoat and disenfranchise gays have nothing to do with "defending marriage" and everything to do with stoking intolerance and extremism to secure dynastic political power for the GOP.

This unholy union between religious conservatives and the Republican party is not unlike the arrangement between the Saudi royal family and Wahhabist fanatics in Saudi Arabia.  The deal goes something like this:  "We (the royals) get the political power and oil and you (clergy/Wahhabists) get the social issues like women's rights, education and morality; just as long as you help us maintain our power by manipulating people's minds and behavior through religion."

Obviously, things are nowhere nearly that bad here.  However, the principle is still the same as the GOP promotes the religious conservatives' agenda on issues of women's rights (abortion), education (vouchers for religious schools and teaching creationism) and morality (gay marriage).

When it comes to leveraging religious extremism for political ends, the GOP's House of Bush and the House of Saud have a lot more in common than you think.

Comments

[don o vann]

When the Three Musketeers at ColoPols accuse the GOP of playing a "gay card," just remember it is the dems who are dealing this session. Did the 3 Muskets blast the dems for playing the pro-abort card on bogus pill bill? Nah. Dems get a free pass again.

[Rebel Dem]

don o vann,

It is I, Rebel Dem, who posted the "Gay Card" post, not the 3 musketeers, as you call them. I am a guest blogger with a Dem political slant, so you should consider everything I post in that context.

[Donald E. L. Johnson]

Rebel Dem, as a conservative R who believes in gay marriage and is against fostering anti-civil rights acts such as those proposed by hating Rs, I thank you for a good post.

In my opinion, it is time for our senators, the governor and gubnatorial candidates to issue a joint statement deploring the spread of hatred and intolerance against gays and other minorities in political campaigns and ballot initiatives. This would take these issues off the table and help return some civility to our state. We need some moral leadership and a strong show of what family values really are in this state.

Where are the editorial writers when we need them?

[Strider]

Yes! History will some down on the side of homosexual marriage and rights. We have a lot of pressing issue in this state. And this is NOT one of them.

[GOP06]

President Bush "narrowly" won Ohio by 119,000 votes

[Strider]

Yeah. In national elections that IS a narrow margin.

[Rebel Dem]

Bush won Ohio 51% to 49%. That's a narrow victory. It is even narrower when you consider that if John Kerry won Ohio, he would be president today and not Bush.

[spanky]

If If If...it didn't happen. The slant on gay marriage is this...there shouldn't be anything in any Constitution regarding this subject. This is about states rights, yes, but I find it very concerning when we can so easily alter the Constitution.
I agree that the contraception bill was just another way to get a foot in the door of state funded abortion, an elective surgery. It had nothing to do with what is best for rape victims.
Basically, in the final scheme of things, The TRUE GOP is about Government being as limited as possible - with a firm hold on the Constitution, which currently isnt happening in either party. Each has a justification for bigger government and will contradict itself with regard to govt's role. The scariest part is that we are leaning to globalism over US sovereignty and our lawmakers making me question what country (or countries) they represent. Both parties want so badly to get to the middle that they are morphing into the same group.

[Phoenix Rising]

Now that was cynical, sparky. Not that I disagree with all of it. But I would like to disagree with two bits:
(1) abortion is not always an elective surgery, and it is a shame that so few ob/gyns are trained in it, and
(2) the thought that the emergency contraception notification bill was a ploy to re-instate state-funded abortion and has nothing to do with rape victims borders on a slur to those who supported this legislation.

[Strider]

"agree that the contraception bill was just another way to get a foot in the door of state funded abortion, an elective surgery. It had nothing to do with what is best for rape victims."

Uh. Uh. Wow. So rape victims and their "elective surgery" or abortion is like a woman going in for a boob job. Ok. . .

Informing someone that the OPTION of the Morning After Pill exists is helping state funded abortions. Ok . . .

Wow. I think I just found the poster child for the freak conservative.

[Dark horse]

You forget to mention that the Dem's are pushing the gay agenda again with SB 28 (Alice Madden) which forces business owners to hire and continue to employ people who cross dress and look foolish, no matter what detriment it will cause their business.

[Marshall]

Wow for once Donald has left me speechless.

Have Republicans finally come to their senses and realized that their party is losing sight of the issues that matter to Coloradoans?

[Phoenix Rising]

Donald has often gotten my respect for sticking up for the Libertarian values in which he believes. I wouldn't take his rationality as a sign of the greater Republican Party waking up, but I do think there are a lot of fiscal conservatives and Libertarian types out there who are wondering what "their" Republican Party has been smoking lately...

[Coloradem]

Dark horse,

If employers want to avoid the whole cross dressing issue, simple, provide uniforms. Incidentally, women have been cross dressing for years with no complaints.

An employer should have no right to hire or fire based upon what their employee does on their off time. If employers want to police that, then they should pay their employees 24 hours-a-day.

If my employer were to fire me for being gay, I'd sue the crap out of them based on Colorado's Lawful Off Duty Activities Law (aka, Smokers' Rights Legislation).

[tommix]

Here is a novel idea: What if employers hired people because they did a good job for them, therefore increasing business?
Then all the rest of that rubbish wouldn't need debate.

Just a thought.

[Strider]

Employers do hire people because they do a good job. If they are smart anyway. This legislation says nothing about forcing you to hire someone who sucks. What it is saying is that you cannot fire a GOOD employee just because he or she cross-dresses on off hours.

[Coloradem]

Hey, if J. Edgar Hoover could run the FBI for all of those years in drag, he has proven that drag can't be all bad...

[heavenly]

Discrimination in the work place is discrimination no matter how you look at it. It just shouldn't be allowed, what gives some people the right to say that you can be discriminated against. It's crazy talk. You should be fired because your bad at your job or your always late, or you post on blogs all day and do nothing else. But you shouldn't be fired because of your sexual orientation.

[Stonewall]

This is a great discussion but just want to clarify one thing. The bill talks about gender identity, that is different then cross-dressers. Gender identiry deals with people who are changing their gender to the opposite. During that transition time the person will change from wearing their original genders clothes to the new genders clothes. The bill is ensuring that people are not fired soley because they are switching to their correct gender and may make some people uncomfortable.

As many have pointed people should be fired because they can't do their job, not because of who the sleep with or if they are switching their gender to match with what is right for them.