Saturday, November 10, 2012

Pundits say Republican Anti-LGBT Rrights Platform Cost Romney Election

Interestingly, two conservative pundits are making the argument that the GOP's anti-gay platform cost Mitt Romney the presidency.  By crunching numbers in certain key states, they argue that had the GOP not nearly completely alienated LGBT voters (not to mention much of the youth vote for the same reason), Mitt Romney would have garnered enough additional votes to swing the election results in those states.  Ohio is a case in point.  One can only hope that the powers that be in the GOP begin to realize that pleasing the Christofascists alienates more voters than it attracts.  With the growing acceptance of gays and gay marriage, the anti-gay platform will be come even more of a loser for the GOP.  If Republican Party truly wants to win at the national level, the first thing they need to do is kick Tony Perkins, Mike Huckabee, Rick Santorum, et al, and the Catholic bishops to the curb. Here are highlights from Gay Star News on this analysis:

Two leading US conservative pundits have suggested that a different Republican stance on LGBT rights could have won them the US presidency.

Fox News contributor Ellen Ratner crunched the numbers and found that if Republican candidate Mitt Romney had managed to garner even 48 percent of the LGBT vote in Ohio he would have carried the key state.

‘Our calculations found that 48 percent of gay voters in Ohio equals 128,742 voters. Or 69,736 more gay voters than Romney actually received,’ Ratner wrote.

‘By our math, if Romney earned 69,736 more votes, he would have totaled 2,654,356 votes, and Obama would've totaled 2,622,125. Therefore, Romney would have won Ohio by 32,231 votes.’  Instead exit polls showed that only 22 percent of LGBT Ohioans had backed the Romney camp.
Ratner’s sentiments were echoed by The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin, who wrote that same-sex marriage was ‘a battle that social conservatives have lost.   "That was crystal clear on Nov. 6. Maine, Minnesota, Washington and Maryland handled gay marriage the right way in a democracy — proponents went to the voters, made their case and won the support of a majority of their fellow citizens,’ Rubin wrote.  .   .   .   .  as a national issue there is no other way to put it: The ship has sailed.

‘Conservatives don’t have to like gay marriage. But they campaign on it at their own risk. Holding onto an issue on which the federal government has precious little to say anyway is as foolish as opining on rape, abortion and God in a two-minute debate answer.

'Opposition to gay marriage by national officials is a political loser, which conveys to a majority of voters an out-of-touchness and lack of inclusiveness. It deprives Republicans of support from the gay community and makes it that much more difficult to reach out to young, urbanized voters.’

The conservative pundits’ analysis backs up a pre-election report by the Gallup polling organization that suggested hardcore support among LGBTs could deliver a second term to President Barack Obama
If the GOP is smart, they will not let Tony Perkins and similar extremist write much of the Party's platform in 2016.

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