The GOP Is Moving Backwards On Gay Rights

In the movie Latter Days - a great movie by the way - one of the Mormon missionaries when asked about gay rights makes a statement to the effect that "there is nothing right about gays."  While most Americans are belatedly coming to see LGBT individuals as fully human and "just like everyone else," the GOP mindset seems to be for the most part intensifying in its position that there is nothing right about gays and that gays should have no rights.  Indeed, we are not even human.  The license to discriminate against gays which just passed the GOP controlled Arizona legislature is but one example.  A piece in The Week looks at the GOP's regression on LGBT issues as it becomes ever more beholden to Christofascists.  Here are excerpts:

To be sure, the GOP has softened on the issue[of gay rights] to a certain degree. Three GOP senators last year announced their support for same-sex marriage. Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) publicly rebuked [Rep. Randy] Forbes' request that the party financially cut off gay candidates. And in California, an openly gay GOP House candidate — who has received support from some leading GOPers — released an ad showing him and his partner at a gay pride parade.

Still, the dissonance between the two camps further underscores the GOP's broader ideological divide. And it calls attention to the vocal influence of its more regressive, unflattering corners, further hindering the party's attempt to broaden its appeal to younger voters, many of whom are gravitating en masse to the Democrats because of social issues like gay marriage.

Even Liz Cheney, whose father supported gay marriage way before it was cool, felt the need to come out against same-sex marriage during her short-lived Senate campaign, prompting a messy public spat with her lesbian sister.

Though the nation as a whole is rapidly warming up to gay marriage — a majority now supports it — conservatives remain overwhelmingly opposed.

So even when given the opportunity to advance causes dear to the gay community, elected Republicans have shied away. For instance, the Senate last year passed the historic Employment Non-Discrimination Act (ENDA) — which would ban workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation — but Boehner hasn't even brought it up for a vote in the House, calling the measure "unnecessary."

Embracing gay marriage is one thing. But if the GOP can't bring itself to extend discrimination protection to gays — and in one case is even encouraging such discrimination — then it will have problems connecting with younger voters for a long time to come.

Frankly, I do not think change from within is possible for the GOP.  The only "cure" is to kill the GOP as a national party and hope that a new, rational, non-hate  filled conservative party can arise and become a national party.  Until that happens, expect the ugliness of the GOP to only worsen.