Conservative / Republican Conflicts

Linda Greenhouse wrote an editorial in the New York Times which we will summarize here with our own editorial comments. It assumes that the Supreme Court will decide the case in favor of gay marriage and hypothesizes about what next.

Conservative Christians will probably claim that they are being victimized and discriminated against. As if they have never done the discriminating. When Indiana passed a law recently that allowed discrimination based on religious beliefs, the state backpedaled fairly quickly when businesses pressured them. She says this was a minor defeat because the federal government has no statutory protection for gay people against discrimination. This is where we were puzzled because sex is a protected class. If you go here on the EEOC website, it claims there are protections.

Apostle Mike

Mike Huckabee  is running for President but based on his statements, he can’t seriously think he is going to win. He told a group of ministers that the US is moving quickly towards “the criminalization of Christianity”. Wow! He is praying for the Supreme Court justices as a “biblical duty” because “Christian convictions are under attack.”

Apparently Republicans don’t always love big business because after Indiana, he said that corporate bullies should stay away from his state of Louisiana. He supposedly wants to run for President too, but you have to wonder.

There were 100 friend of the court briefs in the Supreme Court case. In just one of them, 379 companies put their name to the document. There were a lot of Silicon Valley companies but a lot of old blue chip companies like Pepsi, P&G, Alcoa, Dupont, Dow and on and on. They want their employees to be treated consistently across states and not discriminated against in some states. They said it makes hiring the best people difficult.

So, how is the Republican Party going to handle this? The majority of Americans support gay marriage and for young Republicans it is 61%. How do they deal with this and not alienate a core of their base who oppose gay marriage?

Twisting like a Pretzel

They will probably do the same thing as Ted Cruz, another Presidential hopeful who is making contradictory statements to different audiences. He went to a fund raiser for him in NY hosted by 2 gay businessmen and supposedly said that if one of his girls said she was gay, he would love her just the same. Then he proposed a constitutional amendment that would allow states to still ban gay marriage no matter what the Supreme Court says.

Lyndsey Graham,who has been around longer took a slightly more subtle approach and on several occasions has asked why polygamy shouldn’t be allowed if gay marriage is allowed. But he also said he would go with what the Supreme Court decided.

George F. Will seemed concerned by Huckabee’s statements and referred to him as Apostle Mike. If the Supreme Court decides for gay marriage, the Republicans should thank them. It lets them off the hook with their base and allows them to focus on other topics that have general appeal to the population. Gay marriage is a no win proposition for the Republicans.