"Republicans can reach a broader base by recasting gay marriage as an issue that could dent pocketbooks as small businesses spend more on health care and other benefits, GOP Chairman Michael Steele said Saturday.
Steele said that was just an example of how the party can retool its message to appeal to young voters and minorities without sacrificing core conservative principles. Steele said he used the argument weeks ago while chatting on a flight with a college student who described herself as fiscally conservative but socially liberal on issues like gay marriage.
'Now all of a sudden I've got someone who wasn't a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for,' Steele told Republicans at the state convention in traditionally conservative Georgia. 'So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.'"
One, seriously?
Two, if the younger generations are largely supportive of gay couples and marrying them, then your political solution is to stop demonizing them, Michael Steele. Your progressive Republican values are simply trying to find a new way to hate on them and make-slash-keep gay 'unions' or WTF-ever separate and unequal. *bzzzt!* The correct 'new Republican' way to deal with gays, at least on a federal level, is to give up and leave the issue to the states. No "fag blood" / "AIDS blood" / put-your-favorite-offensive-saying here on your hands that way, and you can leave it to the state-level folk to explain why they love the 'mos :) You've simply gotta give up on the idea that the gays are your whipping boy. What vision. Talk about leading the Republican Party into the future!
Three, you all seriously have to give up on the Grover Norquist version of "fiscal conservativism". That has about zero traction right now and is just the most awesomest way to make it clear to the world you have no intention of being a team player; you all just want to be naysayers. The lady said she was fiscally conservative but that does not, implicitly or explicitly, mean that she is against any and all spending. And moreover, if she's not already against gay marriage, you've just alienated her by trying to reinforce discriminatory, artificial subclassing of people who are probably her friends. Also, excellent vision.
Y'all need to work on A) coming up with new ideas that invigorate voters, and B) not alienate the new voters who are ripe for the picking. When the economy's in the crapper, people seriously couldn't care less about your quickly-becoming-antiquated social values. They care about having a job, putting food on the table, and whether or not they can pay the doctor's bill. Trying to squish the gays in there as a legacy plank in the platform is silly, unnecessary, and insulting (I would think both to homos and to hicks), so seriously, get over it.
2 comments:
So... if we get rid of marriage benefits altogether, then that would be really good for the economy, right?
Have children out of wedlock and NEVER get married, it will be a boost to the economy. Michael Steele says so! Seriously!
Ha, excellent point. Clearly we're missing the boat with this stimulus package!
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