GOP to Retain It's Anti-Gay, Anti-Woman, and Anti-Immigrant Party Platform

In yet another clear sign that the Republican Party remains the party of exclusion dominated by "Christian" extremists and white supremacists, the RNC has voted to retain the 2016 party platform in its entirety with no changes that might expand the the GOP's mythical and non-existent "big tent."  The "social issues" portion of the platform was largely written by Tony Perkins of Family Research Counsel, a certified hate group that is vitriolically anti-gay and seeks a total end to abortion in all cases.  On racial issues, Perkins has documented ties to white supremacy groups and retention of the 2016 platform - combined with Trump's objections to NASCAR ban of the confederate flag and changing the names of military bases bearing the names of Confederate generals - signals that the GOP will play the race card again in 2020.  Much of the opposition to any streamlining and toning down of the party platform has come from Christofascists to whom Trump continues to pander.  A piece Politico looks at the situation and a platform that hopefully harms down ballot candidates who may try to pretend they are moderates.  Here are highlights:

A vote by the Republican National Committee to leave the party’s 2016 party platform unchanged ahead of the November election has infuriated grassroots activists — including moderates who wanted to streamline its message and social conservatives who sought added language on emerging hot-button topics.

The decision by the party’s executive panel Wednesday means the GOP will maintain positions in the 4-year-old policy blueprint — including opposition to same-sex marriage and a nod to gay conversion therapy — and decline to stake out new positions on topics such as police reform, gender identity and third-trimester abortions. Party officials and senior Trump campaign aides had previously discussed ways to pare down the 58-page document to a single note card or abbreviated list of principles, but the effort broke down after several conservative groups registered complaints with the White House.

“America has changed incredibly since 2016 and not updating our platform to reflect that is an unforced error. The RNC should reconsider this terrible decision,” said Terry Schilling, executive director of the American Principles Project and a proponent of updating the platform to oppose efforts to defund law enforcement or permit transgender minors to undergo gender reassignment treatments.

“We can’t go into 2020 with the same platform we had in 2016, and by limiting the ability to make changes you run the risk of having a stale platform. It will be tone deaf,” Schilling added.

At the other end of the GOP spectrum, Jerri Ann Henry, former executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, said the decision effectively upholds “one of the worst platforms in terms of LGBT issues.” Henry, who has spent years fighting for marriage equality within the Republican Party, was supportive of a condensed platform that “harkens back to the party’s big principles and not the minute detail of every microscopic policy.”

But when plans to shrink the bloated platform fell through, the only suitable alternative in her view was to proceed with platform deliberations, which typically occur in the week or two prior to the party’s nominating convention.

The widespread disappointment in the decision to leave the platform unchanged illuminates one of President Donald Trump’s major hurdles as he campaigns for reelection. The same traditional conservative groups that objected to condensing the platform in a way that would have eliminated controversial planks on abortion, parental rights and LGBT issues are now annoyed they can’t change the platform to strengthen its language on some of those same issues and others.

At the same time, positions contained in the 2016 platform on abortion, education, marriage, LGBT rights and family structure could further alienate suburban voters and women. Those demographics abandoned the GOP in droves during the 2018 midterms and the Trump campaign has invested significant resources to try to win them back.

Grassroots conservatives [think Christofascists] view the platform as a mechanism for accountability and worried that eliminating its explicit language on social issues would open the door for Republican candidates to be deliberately vague on key issues. Among their concerns was that mentions of abortion — which comes up 35 times in the 2016 version — would be reduced.

“The full platform is still essential for guiding policy, holding legislators accountable, and for distinguishing policy differences between Republicans and Democrats,” the Eagle Forum had written in its Monday letter to Trump and McDaniels. “We respectfully request that all efforts to streamline the overall platform, which has been forged over more than a century of committed grassroots activism, be resisted.”

With the Platform Committee scrapped, the only official business that is likely to take place next month in Charlotte, N.C. — the original location of the 2020 GOP convention — is the selection of Trump as the party’s nominee. [Trump's] The president’s acceptance speech is expected to take place at a separate facility in Jacksonville, Fla., though the Trump campaign and RNC were still finalizing those details this week.

GOP Platform Committee - Religious Lunacy on Display

UPDATED:  The batshitery keeps on going.  Now this from the New Civil Rights Movement:

Republican National Committee subcommittee members Monday voted to approve a plank embracing the use of harmful anti-LGBT conversion therapy, after it was introduced by [Tony Perkins] the head of a certified anti-gay hate group [Family Research Council]. The plank will be voted on by a committee and then all RNC voting members before becoming an official part of the 2016 platform.

I had predicted that the Republican Party would find it difficult to tone down the party platform's anti-gay rhetoric.  So far, not only does that appear to be an on target prediction, but the Christian conservatives that are disproportionately represented on the platform committee seem hell bent to display to the world just how insane the GOP has become since they crawled out from under rocks and slithered from swamps to hijack the party.  Not only were efforts to blunt anti-gay positions defeated, but NBC News is reporting that a platform subcommittee has approved an amendment which calls for the Bible to be taught in public schools as a “historical document.”   As for the anti-gay elements, here are highlights from the New York Times which obtained some excerpts from the platform committee's work:

“The data and the facts lead to an inescapable conclusion: that every child deserves a married mom and dad. The reality remains that millions of American families do not have the advantages that come with that structure. We honor the courageous efforts of those who bear the burdens of parenting alone and embrace the principle that all Americans should be treated with dignity and respect. But respect is not enough. Our laws and our government’s regulations should recognize marriage as the union of one man and one woman and actively promote married family life as the basis of a stable and prosperous society. For that reason, as explained elsewhere in the platform, we do not accept the Supreme Court’s redefinition of marriage and we urge its reversal, whether through judicial reconsideration or a constitutional amendment returning control over marriage to states.” “

We emphatically support the original, authentic meaning of Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972. It affirmed that ‘No person in the United States shall, on the basis of sex, be excluded from participation in, be denied the benefits of, or be subjected to discrimination.’ ... That same provision of the law is now being used by bureaucrats — and by the current president of the United States — to impose a social and cultural revolution upon the American people. Their agenda has nothing to do with individual rights; it has everything to do with power. They are determined to reshape our schools — and our entire society — to fit the mold of an ideology alien to America’s history and traditions. Their edict to the states concerning restrooms, locker rooms and other facilities is at once illegal, ominous, and ignores privacy issues. We salute the several states which have filed suits against it.”

Alabama GOP Votes Against Removing Member For Supporting Gay Marriage

Click image to enlarge

Perhaps there is some hope for my former state of Alabama yet.  I frequently lament that Alabama is far more insane now that it was in the late 1970's when I lived there and George Wallace was governor (I got to meet Wallace once).  In a move that frankly took me by surprise, the Alabama GOP voted down a rule change aimed at expelling the president of the state College Republicans organization for committing the heresy of supporting gay marriage.  One can only assume that the Christofascist behind the proposed rule change failed to ladled out enough Kool-Aid to addle the minds of the governing board of the state GOP.   Talking Points Memo looks at the surprising and welcome move.  Here are highlights:

The Alabama Republican Party voted Saturday against a proposed rule that would have removed a junior member from its steering committee because of her support of gay marriage, the Associated Press reported.

The measure was aimed at Stephanie Petelos, the chairwoman of the Alabama College Republicans, who had made public comments in support of the Supreme Court's decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act. Petelos told the AP she hopes her ordeal "doesn't scare or shy anyone away from the party."

Bonnie Sachs, an executive committee member who proposed the rule change, told the AP that steering committee members need to serve "in such a way that we don't go to the media with an agenda that we may have." Other committee members said they didn't share Petalos' view on gay marriage, but did respect her First Amendment right to expressing that view.

"We're not the Taliban. We're not the Third Reich," committee member Clay Barclay told the AP.

Perhaps the GOP isn't yet the Taliban or Third Reich, but that is exactly the type of regime that the Christofascist who drafted the 20112 GOP party platform would like to implement.   Candidly, I can see FRC's Tony Perkins happily playing a role equivalent to that of Joesph Goebbels in the Third Reich.  Or if not Perkins, then Gary Bauer. 

Alabama GOP Seeks To Oust Pro-Gay College Republican Chairwoman

Proving yet again that Alabama has gone increasingly insane and reactionary compared to when I lived there 30 years ago, the Alabama GOP is seeking to oust the chairwoman of the College Republicans in that state.  Here offense? Her support for gay marriage and having the courage to state that not all Republicans agree with the dictates of the Christofascists who have taken over the party base.   The irony, of course, is that by conducting these kinds of witch hunts, the GOP is mere guaranteeing that the party's demographics will become even more centered on elderly far right Christian white voters.  Here are highlights from Yellowhammer News:

A proposed amendment to the bylaws of the Alabama Republican Party would remove from the Party’s steering committee any member who publicly supports a position contrary to the most recent GOP platform, which was adopted during the 2012 Republican National Convention.

Don Wallace of Tuscaloosa and Bonnie Sachs of Double Springs are the amendment’s sponsors. Sachs’ husband, Harold, is the most senior staffer at the Alabama Republican Party under Chairman Bill Armistead.

Party insiders say the proposed amendment was written as a direct result of comments made by current Alabama College Republicans Chairwoman Stephanie Petelos around the time the Supreme Court ruled the Defense of Marriage Act unconstitutional.

“We just [love] freedom and fun. That’s all. Don’t hate.” Petelos posted on her Facebook page after the Court’s decision was announced. She also encouraged her Facebook friends to “like” a page for a pro-gay marriage group called “Young Conservatives for the Freedom to Marry.” Petelos said she joined the group because she believes “all people deserve to be treated equally under the law.”

[T]he ALGOP bylaws committee went a step further and proposed a written agreement that instructed Petelos to never speak publicly against any part of the Party’s platform. She declined to sign it. 

The amendment will be voted on by the Alabama Republican Party executive committee at the Party’s summer meeting on Aug. 24.

As readers may recall, the "social issues" portion of the GOP Party Platform was authored in large part by hate group leader Tony Perkins and similar Christofascists.  The clear message to younger pro-gay Republicans is that they are not wanted in the party.  I hope they get the message and walk away and thus hasten the much needed death of today's GOP.

Christofascists: Feminists Are Family-Destroying Whores; Minorities Are Leaving "Normal Marriage"

Even as the GOP potentates are struggling to find a improved message and "Moses like messenger," the Christofacists elements of the GOP base are hard at work ramping up their efforts to alienate women and minorities.  How else to explain two batshitery eruptions from the far right.  As Right Wing Watch reports, Christian radio hosts Pastor Kevin Swanson and Dave Buehner went on a rant describing feminists as ugly, narcissistic, family-destroying whores who refuse to submit to a man. And then we have Joseph Goebbels look alike, Gary Bauer (pictured above) attacking minorities for their growing acceptance of same sex marriage.  The dripping hate and venom that these "godly Christians" and good Republicans is more than enough o send sane voters running away screaming.  First, here are highlights from Right Wing Watch:

Christian conservative radio hosts Kevin Swanson and Dave Buehner are not exactly big fans of feminism in any of its forms. So far this month, they have opined that a woman fired for being too attractive shouldn’t have been working for a man who wasn’t her husband in the first place; that “socialist” single women are taking over America; and that Sandra Fluke isn’t “ladylike” enough to be considered for Woman of the Year.

There are “two forms of feminism,” Buehner argued. There are “cute” feminists like Sarah Palin who will find jobs in the “marketplace” and “get themselves a husband” but will “never submit to the husband, in fact they will use their power probably to make their husband submit to them.” Then, there are the “ugly” feminists whose “lack of attractiveness has not given them access to power that they wanted in the marketplace.” These “attractively challenged” feminists will only find careers in academia and in government agencies, for instance, “you can run the EPA.”

What all these feminists have in common, Swanson argues, is that “all of them want to be free from the family” and together with “the homosexuals” are “destroying society.” Buehner speculates that in the future, feminism will be remembered as “a time in which women lost the love of their children” and “decided to become selfish, narcissistic, family-destroying whores.”

Truly, this batshitery is NOT a winning message for attracting women voters, yet people as insane as these crackpots drafted the GOP 2012 party platform.  But women are not the only targets of far right venom.  As The Advocate reports, failed GOP presidential candidate and Family Research Council founder Gary Bauer has been ranting against minorities and accusing them of abandoning "normal marriage."  Here are highlights:  

Immediately after Republicans failed to take the White House or the Senate and lost seats in the House, religious right mouthpiece Gary Bauer claimed in interviews that the party just wasn't antigay enough to win.

But now he seems to be revising his post-election analysis ever so slightly.  .  .  .  . now ThinkProgress points out that Bauer claims President Obama has so drastically reshaped the political landscape with his own support for marriage equality that it might not be a winning issue.

"The coalition in favor of normal marriage has been made up of political conservatives and American minority groups, including Hispanics and blacks," Bauer told LifeSiteNews. "But the president’s so-called ‘evolution’ on this issue has resulted in what appears to be a major shift among blacks and Hispanics toward favoring same-sex marriage."

But Bauer isn't calling for his party to change. Just the opposite: he predicts the GOP will remain opposed to marriage equality come 2016 and that the platform will continue its staunch antigay language.

If one wants to see active cases of untreated mental illness, look no farther than the GOP base.  These people are frightening.

Are GOP Voters Rejecting the Party's Anti-Gay Stance?

An article in the Washington Post looks at data from the November 6, 2012, for the four states that saw same anti-gay marriage measures defeated in each instance.  What is so interesting is that even in precincts that Romney carried by large margins, the anti-gay effort lost.  In short, significant numbers of Republicans ignored the Christofascist drafted GOP party platform (hate group leader Tony Perkins was a principal drafter) and instead voted for marriage equality.  The GOP's anti-gay positions have already cost the party the vast majority of voters under 30.  Now, the evidence suggest that anti-gay initiatives may no longer be working as envisioned by the Christofascists even with many in the over 30 age brackets.  Poll after poll shows that only in the over 65 age group does an anti-gay agenda resonate and guess what?  That anti-gay demographic is literally dying off with each passing elections cycle and being replaced by non-religious extremists.  Will the GOP get the message that the party's institutionalized homophobia may increasingly be a liability?  I'm not going to hold my breath.  Here are some article excerpts:

After years of defeats, same-sex-marriage advocates scored a remarkable 4-0 sweep of state ballot contests on Nov. 6. One major reason: This year, significant numbers of Republicans voted their way. That should give pause to a GOP establishment that has alienated many younger voters and independents with its stance on the issue and now faces the prospect of dissent among its core constituents as well.

The evidence comes straight from a close study of the election returns in Maryland, Maine and Minnesota. (Washington state, with its unique system of mail voting, has been slower to report its results in detail. I’ve based my analysis on the other three states that had same-sex-marriage contests.)

The Maryland ballot referendum, Question 6, essentially asked voters to confirm or reject a new law allowing same-sex marriage. In 11 of the 18 counties that Mitt Romney carried, Question 6 fared better than President Obama, a sign that GOP voters had crossed over in support. While the phenomenon could be seen everywhere from farm towns to blue-collar inner suburbs, the biggest swings tended to come in affluent bedroom communities. At one precinct in Hunt Valley, north of Baltimore, with 2,116 votes cast, there was a 28 percentage-point swing, leading to a landslide for Romney and the ballot question: Obama drew a paltry 37 percent, but Question 6 carried the precinct with a whopping 65 percent.

In Minnesota, where voters were asked to ban same-sex marriage through a state constitutional amendment, precinct returns show that suburban Republicans broke from their party in droves to defeat the ban. According to the Pioneer Press of St. Paul, 47 towns around the Twin Cities area voted for Romney while opposing the measure, known as Amendment One. Exurban Scott County, the state’s fastest growing, narrowly turned down Amendment One, even as it gave Romney a comfortable 56.5 percent of its vote.

[W]ithin commuting distance of the Twin Cities, the defections from the Republican line were deep and unmistakable. Romney won easily in such lakeside Hennepin County towns as Orono, Deephaven and Shorewood. Conventional wisdom would have them voting for the marriage ban as well — but they rejected Amendment One by 60 percent or more.

Maine voters were asked to legalize same-sex marriage through a referendum that lost narrowly in 2009. This time it won, with 53 percent of the vote. Again, Republicans helped secure the victory.

The Bangor suburb of Hampden voted both for Romney and for freedom to marry. The other four towns, all Portland suburbs — Cumberland, Falmouth, Yarmouth and Cape Elizabeth — went for Obama by votes ranging from 53 to 63 percent, and then in each case registered a further 10- to 13-point swing toward same-sex marriage.

So where next for the Republican Party on this issue?  .  .  .  .  one plausible path would be a GOP call for leaving the issue to the states, with New York going one way, for instance, and Texas another. That would probably capture a consensus among a broad range of active Republicans, fit reasonably well with the party’s other ideological stands and still distinguish its position from the Democratic Party’s support for same-sex marriage in its 2012 platform.  The GOP has left itself little room to maneuver.

Although many national polls now show support for marriage equality, the national Republican platform continues to endorse the same deeply out-of-touch proposal.  If and when the party’s leadership changes its mind, a whole lot of suburban Republicans will be murmuring under their breath, “About time.”

Frankly, the quickest way for the GOP to regain popularity with younger voters and independents is to kick the Christofascists to the curb where they belong.  Unfortunately, this will not be an easy task since the embrace of the Christofascists by the GOP has caused so many one time Republicans to flee the party and comfortably become independents or even Democrats.

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.

Kathleen Parker Has Romnesia

Often columnist Kathleen Parker is a voice of reason in a Republican Party that has become a de facto sectarian party that seeks to force its religious beliefs on all Americans and gut the First Amendment promise of freedom of religion for all citizens.  Indeed, I have noted and commented when Parker has written columns decrying the GOP's "death wish" and describing with horror the ultra-reactionary GOP party platform adopted in Tampa earlier in August.  She has even described Mitt Romney as a cyborg.  She's even complained about the GOP's "god problem" and attacks against her by Christofascists who label her as a fascist (search her name on this blog for more examples). Despite all of this, Parker must have either (i) developed a severe case of "Romnesia," (ii) suffered serious head trauma, (iii) guzzled down gallons of Christianist Kool-Aid, or (iv) bene kidnapped and subjected to a Stepford Wives like transformation.  How else can one explain her column in today's Washington Post in which she accuses Barack Obama of relaunching the so-called culture wars and claims that no one in the GOP will take away the right to abortion.  Here are samples from her severe, debilitating Romnesia induced delusion column:

We shouldn’t be talking about this silliness — Big Bird, “bull­s----er” or a girl’s “first time.”  We should be talking about The Issues, we keep telling ourselves. But in the waning days of the presidential campaign, these are the issues — binders full of cultural issues that continue to divide us and by which Barack Obama hopes to win reelection.

It is no accident that the war of competing economic theories has devolved into the same old culture war, beginning with the debate about the contraception mandate under the Affordable Care Act. Ever since, the Obama campaign has strategically tried to push the Republican Party and Mitt Romney into a corner by advancing the war-on-women narrative.

That Obama has had ample help from certain outspoken players (Missouri and Indiana Senate candidates Todd Akin and Richard Mourdock, respectively, to name the most notorious) has only made Romney’s challenges greater. But the war against women has always been a red herring.

The contraception issue never would have come up but for Obama’s decision to force the hand of the Catholic Church. By placing religious institutions in the position of having to provide health insurance to pay for contraception as well as sterilization, which, agree or not, are against church teaching, Obama created the conversation.

The same ol’ culture wars. But, of course, women have had access to birth control for decades, and no one is trying to take it away. Anyone who suggests otherwise may have been spending too much time with Big Bird. 

One can only hope that Parker seeks immediate medical treatment for this shocking disconnect from reality and her many past columns that underscore the source of the culture wars within today's insane GOP and the party's own platform.

The Election Choice for LGBT Citizens Cannt Be More Stark

Click image to enlarge Party Platform comparison

In my October, 2012 VEER column (which will be on distribution stands on October 15th) I look at length on the incredible stark contrast between what the Romney/Ryan ticket and the GOP platform offers to LGBT Americans and what the Obama/Biden and Democrat platform offers them   On the GOP side, the candidates and the platform oppose every single issue and policy that would make LGBT Americans full citizens and protect them from firing at will and other forms of discrimination.  In sharp contrast, the Democrats support virtually every pro-LGBT position.  A column in Salon takes a similar view and one has to wonder how any LGBT citizen could vote for Romney/Ryan and other GOP candidates given the reality that the GOP seeks to deny us our civil rights, bar any recognition of our life partners, and re-implement an anti-gay version of the Jim Crow laws.  Here are column highlights:

It will be quite interesting to see what the exit polls show this year, because 2012 is different. For the first time, no spectrum of dreary grays. The colors are black and white. At last, gay voters have a choice, not an echo.

President Obama started slow on gay rights. He opposed marriage equality, dragged his feet on the military-service ban, and let the Justice Department file a brief defending DOMA that could have been written by his predecessor. But then he made up for lost time. He went out on a limb jurisprudentially by abandoning his legal defense of DOMA. He and the Democratic Congress got the military ban repealed. He used executive authority to provide some benefits for same-sex partners of federal workers. Above all, he came out this year in support of gay marriage — and, in its platform, his party did the same.

Separately, those policy changes were important, but they add up to something altogether historic.  

Then there is Romney. Whatever his attitude in private, his public posture has been that of a throwback. He opposes gay marriage and civil unions and favors a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. That puts him where George W. Bush was in 2004 and, please note, several clicks to the right of Sen. John McCain, the 2008 Republican nominee, who opposed the constitutional amendment (as did Bush’s vice president, Dick Cheney). He says he hires without regard to sexual orientation but seems to oppose a federal non-discrimination law, much the same position that George W. Bush took in 2000. (He hired an openly gay foreign-policy spokesman, but the guy lasted less than two weeks.) He opposed repealing the military ban, although he says he would not revisit the decision. His running mate and his party’s platform promise to defend DOMA.

Perhaps most significant, Romney remains on the pre-1960s side of the cultural divide separating those who are comfortable with gay people and issues from those who squirm.

In moving as decisively as they have on gay rights, the Democrats are following the country. As recently as 2004, according to Gallup, 54 percent of the public thought same-sex relations were morally wrong, versus 42 percent saying they were morally acceptable. The converging lines met in 2008, however, and never looked back. This year, the 2004 numbers are precisely flipped; 54 percent morally approved of homosexuality, only 42 percent disapproved.

To put the matter bluntly, the Republican Party is becoming an isolated bastion of anti-gay sentiment.  .  .  .  We do know this: If any Republican in the 2012 field had the potential to lead the party away from its growing isolation on gay equality, it was Mitt Romney. By choosing instead to pander to the anti-gay right, he made gay voters’ choice easier . . . .

The bottom line in my view: any LGBT citizen who votes for a GOP candidate is like a Jew voting for Adolph Hitler or a black voting for the Imperial Wizard of the KKK.  The would be GOP supporters can wring their hands and make excuses, but the bottom line, as I said, is that a vote for today's GOP is a vote for self-destruction and marginalization.   I'm sure some readers will not like my assessment, but those who are disgruntled by my views need to look at themselves in the mirror and ask "WTF am I doing?"

Todd Akin: The Real Face of the GOP

While many Republicans have tried to distance themselves from Congressman Todd Akin's "legitimate rape"comment, the reality is that when one looks at the GOP Party Platform, Akin is the real face of today's GOP regardless of the pretense that he's not by other Republicans.  Yes, Akin is an extremist and nutcase, but then so is the Party Platform, portions of which were drafted by extremist such as Tony Perkins of FRC and his cohorts.  It doesn't get any more extreme than that.   Hence why Democrats across the country are holding up Akin as an example of what the Republican Party - including Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan - really stands for nowadays.  An article in Politico looks at the phenomenon.  Here are excerpts:

Democrats are running hard against Todd Akin in Missouri — and in Washington state, New York, Arizona and California.   The Republican Senate candidate whose comments about “legitimate rape” caused a stir in August has become Democrats’ favorite opponent, even in places where he’s not on the ticket.

Women’s issues were already central to the campaign when Democrats seized on Akin’s comments, taking the fight over contraception and abortion onto much more uncomfortable ground for Republicans — rape.

In some races, Akin is featured by name in attack ads.

Former Rep. Dan Maffei is airing an ad in New York that features a photo of his opponent Rep. Ann Marie Buerkle next to Akin.  The ad references a bill Buerkle cosponsored with Akin that would have banned funds for abortions except for in instances of “forcible rape,” The word “forcible” was later removed from the bill.  “For Ann Marie Buerkle, women who were drugged or even minors who were victims of statutory rape would not be classified rape victims,” a woman’s voice says in the ad.  “That’s just too extreme.”  The ad has struck a nerve with the Buerkle campaign.

While establishment Republicans initially turned on Akin in August, some have come to his aid in recent weeks. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham and Jim DeMint of South Carolina and Sens. Tom Coburn and James Inhofe of Oklahoma held a fundraiser for Akin last week. Former presidential hopefuls Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum have endorsed him.

Akin has also cropped up in California, where Democrat Ami Bera is challenging Rep. Dan Lungren. Lungren was forced to back away from the same bill as Buerkle, saying in a recent debate that he “would not support” the measure without the word “forcible” removed.  Bera’s campaign is also holding women-to-women phone banks, where the campaign says Akin’s “forcible rape” bill is one of the top issues that female voters are talking about.

“[Akin] is the Republican who says what the others are thinking,” Jess McIntosh of EMILY’s List said. “His comments did not come out of nowhere. People weren’t blindsided with the idea that Republicans think some rapes are more important or worse than others.”  Planned Parenthood’s Dawn Laguens agreed.

“Todd Akin is just the impolite expression of an array of policies that a Republican platform and Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan support and are pretty unpopular and try to avoid talking about,” Laguens said. “It’s like letting the crazy relative out of the back room and into the party. It just shown a light for most people are appalled by the ignorance of these politicians when it comes to women’s lives and to their health and to their reproductive systems.”

In the weeks following Akin’s comments, Planned Parenthood Action Fund produced a web ad hitting GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul Ryan highlighting the similarities Ryan and Akin have on women’s health care. The ad got 3,000 views on YouTube and had more than 1,000 likes on Facebook. The group also created a graphic linking Ryan to Akin on health care that got nearly 17,000 Facebook shares and has three mail pieces in Iowa hitting Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) for his comments to targeted women voters.

The GOP can try to pretend that Akin doesn't represent the Party's true views, but just like so much of what Mitt Romney said during last week's debate, it's a lie.  Akin IS the face of today's GOP.  It's extreme and it's ugly.

Ten Races Where Romney/Ryan Could Sink GOP Candidates

With Mitt Romney's flailing campaign and the growing toxicity of Paul Ryan with senior citizens focused on Medicare, the Romney/Ryan ticket is becoming a severe drag on other races and may, indeed, push the GOP candidate to defeat.  Of course, the breath taking extremism of the GOP Party Platform isn't exactly helping a number of these candidates either. Capitol Confidential looks at 10 congressional races where Romney/Ryan may prove to be the kiss of death.  One involves George Allen's quest to regain his lost U.S. Senate seat here in Virginia where Allen is being pummeled for his allegiance to elements of the  GOP platform that includes support for a personhood law that would outlaw abortion and some forms of contraception.  Here are some article highlights:

Mitt Romney’s campaign woes have taken a toll on Republican candidates in Democratic-leaning or swing states.  Polls show that some Republicans who had been running ahead of Democratic opponents have now slipped into tight contests, while others who had been surging around Labor Day have now dropped behind.

The impact of Romney’s struggles is not as evident in heavily Republican states, where President Obama appears to have little or no coattails.  Here are ten elections where Obama’s strength — or Romney’s weakness — could sink Republican nominees:

*** Massachusetts Sen. Scott Brown

The freshman Republican shocked the Democratic establishment by winning a 2010 special election for the Senate seat long held by Ted Kennedy, but now he’s suffering from anti-Romney backlash in Mitt’s home state. The GOP presidential candidate, a former Massachusetts governor, is trailing in Bay State polls by as many as 33 percentage points.

*** Connecticut Senate candidate Linda McMahon

Just when Republican Senate candidate Linda McMahon was surging, Mitt Romney’s “47 percent” controversy came along. The former wrestling CEO, who has run a disciplined and well-organized campaign, saw a short-lived lead over Democrat Chris Murphy turn into a small but significant deficit over the past three weeks.

*** Rhode Island House challenger Brendan Doherty

Freshman Democrat David Cicilline is in trouble not because of anything he’s done in Washington, but because of the mess he left behind in Providence. Cicilline, the city’s former mayor, said two years ago that he was leaving the city in excellent condition.. . . . . Cicilline is trying to tie Doherty to the Romney-Ryan agenda, prompting Doherty to tell the Associated Press: ‘‘I am not a part of any radical position. I’m running as Brendan Doherty. I’m my own man.’’ Doherty could be the right candidate in the wrong year.

 *** California Rep. Dan Lungren . . . . .  

the tide has turned and California Republicans are playing defense in a state where President Obama could win by 20 percentage points. Lungren and San Diego Republican congressman Brian Bilbray are the incumbents most likely to be swept away if Romney doesn’t close the gap.

*** Illinois Rep. Bob Dold

Tea Party freshman Bob Dold holds the distinction of representing the most Democratic congressional district currently in Republican hands. Add to that the fact that Illinois is President Obama’s home state and he’s going to win biiiiiiiiiiig there. . . . .Romney’s performance could well determine Dold’s future.

*** Washington state gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna

The state of Washington is the most Democratic in the nation when it comes to its governorship. No Republican has been elected governor here since 1980. At the outset of this year’s campaign, GOP Attorney General Rob McKenna has a good chance of making history. Recent polls show the race a dead heat and McKenna, a Texas native, leads among independents. But the Democratic tide could help former congressman Jay Inslee keep the Democratic streak alive.

*** Virginia Senate candidate George Allen

Until Romney’s September woes, the Virginia Senate race was the nation’s closest. But recent polls show Democrat Tim Kaine moving ahead of Republican George Allen in a battle of popular former governors. Kaine’s lead mirrors Obama’s — and there are not many Virginians who will split their tickets.

*** Pennsylvania Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick

Democrats are working overtime to tie Republican congressman Mike Fitzpatrick to Romney. They are calling the incumbent “mini-Mitt” and “Mike FitzRomney” after he told a Tea Party group that Congress needs people who “sign the front of a paycheck, not the back of the paycheck.” 

*** New York House challenger Chris Collins

Democrat Kathy Hochul won a dramatic upset in a 2011 special election for a western New York House seat surrendered by Republican Chris Lee, whose shirtless photo made him one of the Empire State’s laughingstock lawmakers. (Think Anthony Weiner.) Republicans have a 40,000 voter edge in registration here . . . . With Obama favored to win New York by 20 percentage points or more, Collins could come up short.

*** Arizona Senate candidate Jeff Flake

The tough immigration enforcement law that won the state national admirers and detractors has had one unintended effect: It has strongly motivated Latinos and Democrats to come to the polls in 2012. The result is closer-than-anticipated races both for president and Senate in Arizona. While Romney seems likely to hang on, the prognosis is more iffy for Rep. Jeff Flake . . . . If the bottom falls out on the GOP presidential candidate, however, Carmona could be one of the surprise winners on Nov. 6.

Yes, Romney is a poor candidate pushing a horrible agenda of greed, selfishness, anti-minority, anti-woman and anti-gay extremism.  But, if the bottom falls out for Romney, the real fault will lie with the GOP base which has made it almost impossible for a rational candidate to win the party nomination.