Mitt Romney won’t fight for gay people. He’s against gay marriage, he’s said that he will allow DADT to stand if he becomes president though he wasn’t “comfortable” with it, and he won’t stand up for his gay employees when they are targeted by religious conservative groups. But it looks like gay Republicans will fight for Mitt Romney. Last night, GOProud voted to endorse him in the 2012 presidential race:
In a statement, the group for gay conservatives and their allies announced it had “enthusiastically,” but not unanimously, decided to back Romney despite his support for an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would limit marriage to the union of one man and one woman.
“GOProud is prepared to commit significant resources to help make Mitt Romney the next President of the United States,” said Lisa De Pasquale, interim GOProud board chair and former CPAC director…“Not only does President Obama not understand how the free markets work — he is openly hostile to free market capitalism,” said Jimmy LaSalvia, GOProud executive director.
On an unrelated note, I can’t believe people can say this “openly hostile to free market capitalism” shit with a straight face. It’s not true. American corporations are making more money than ever. I fucking wish President Obama was a little more openly hostile to free market capitalism; groups like GOProud would still hate him, but other Americans, the ones who don’t actively vote against their own interests, would eat it up.
I don’t think Obama is hostile to capitalism, but the fact that corporations are making lots of money isn’t exactly evidence in support.
The problem is that once a company can reliably make money, then they can reliably spend some of that money to help ensure they will continue to make money, thus subverting capitalism to some degree. Specific examples of this live on both sides (oil &c with Republicans, entertainment and financial services with Democrats, and local businesses on both sides), but generally, Republicans think this is great (“the free market in action”) and Democrats think it is shitty (“hijacking the government”).
It’s hard to push back against stuff like this, because my honest response is, “You are somewhat correct in describing the problem, but you are also totally out of touch with reality.”
This is the only way gays will ever win any credibility with conservatives. It’s actually a bright spot in comparison to the “Constant” onslaught of misinformation the left is putting out there. Especially the part about gays going against their own interests. They are going against their own interests by lying to people about the true intention behind gay marriage, which is to attack Christians for their perpetual demonizing of their chosen lifestyle. I would support any gay group that isn’t just out for themselves and that wants to fit peacefully in society. Any other groups like Basic Rights Oregon? No fucking chance ever. I don’t like liars and the seemingly endless hordes of supporters who lie for them. I will never vote for gay marriage as long as groups like this exist. In fact, I will do my best to fight them every step of the way until honest gay people lead the charge and come at people like me in a respectful manner. Only then will I consider gay marriage.
Remember kids, don’t feed the troll.
I don’t know if Obama is necessarily “openly hostile to free market capitalism” but any half brain high school graduate should appreciate that dolling out billions of dollars in secret to corporations is not “free market capitalism”. Obama’s policies show a clear support for “corporate socialism” or “corporate welfare” or “socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor” or whatever you want to call it. Definitively and absolutely not “free market capitalism” – and certainly Romney is not a supporter of “free market capitalism” either. Pointing to corporations with high earnings is an irrelevant method of gauging Obama and the “free market.” At least as irrelevant as Paul Constant’s musings on Obama and Republicans.
We shouldn’t find it surprising or hypocritical that a gay-advocacy group within the Republican Party is supporting a Republican candidate. What I find much more news worthy is the willingness of gay-advocacy groups to support Obama, it shows that gay-advocacy groups don’t really give two shits about broad anti-oppression concerns for other people, that gay-advocacy groups are entirely self-interested, and not concerns with the oppression of Muslims, for example. I think the cause of “solidarity”, mutual support, and all the ideals of folks like Dr. King are basically being thrown out the window because gays think they’ll receive some level of equality. It’s great for gay marriage to be recognized on the Federal level, but gays should ask themselves if it’s OK for their electronic conversations to be recorded by the CIA/NSA, and if it’s OK for Obama to be massacring families (including innocent children, and bypassers trying to render aide to the wounded) or assassinating American citizens (and their children) without oversight. I, personally, think there is much bigger concerns in this country than fucking gay marriage being recognized by the goddamn Federal government, but I’m not gay. The Gay community should be pressuring the federal government to cease all of their abuses practices, instead they seem to be focusing exclusively on gay marriage, and now they do nothing but praise Obama instead of criticizing his policies. The gay community has been appeased, and now they’ll be silent as the murder of innocent people continues – it’s not surprising, but it is more news worthy than GOProud.
@4, if you rank all the problems in the country, only one of them is at the top; when someone brings up something they feel is wrong, you can always point to something else and say, “What about this? You don’t think this is important?”
(I’m not accusing you of what I’m about to describe, just bringing it to your attention, since I by and large agree that the problems you identified are very important.)
This is a tactic commonly used by opponents to distract from a problem they would rather not see addressed. “You women are complaining about equal pay? What about little girls in country X who can’t go to school?” It refocuses the discussion on the greater oppression, at the expense of actually dealing with the first issue.
Right now, there is political energy behind marriage equality, so people are trying to get something done, because it is extremely unlikely to be undone. Rather than criticize people fighting this fight, you can lend your time/money/energy to solve the problems you think are important.
Also, it’s pretty impractical to say, “We should always focus all our energy on the most serious and intractable problems.” Nothing smaller will ever get done.
You’re saddled up, there’s no recourse.
@5, eldepeche, It was my point to say that gay advocacy groups are essentially abandoning the traditional “leftist” positions now that they are being appeased, which is sort of a slap in the face to the social-justice community that stood in solidarity for so long. They are totally abandoning the idea of everyone struggling together. I’m not accusing all gay people of this, only large advocacy groups and media celebrities. Obama is the personal executive in a process that is killing entire families overseas, even when we don’t know their name, and then we will kill the people who are trying to help their neighbors, even if they’ve done nothing else wrong. The Obama’s administration lies about the statistics, denies the program even exists, and lock people in cages who try and expose it. Yes, I think this topic in particular is infinitely more important than domestic marriage equality, not on unquantifiable moral grounds, but on testable, arguable, ethical grounds. Gays praising Obama, especially on the grounds of promoting civil rights, is fucking ridiculous at best, and offensive at worst. Is there any dictator in the world that gay advocacy groups and gay celebrities would not praise, as long as the dictator agreed with gay lifestyles?
Don’t get me wrong: it’s one thing to support a single policy, it’s another thing to support a political candidate entirely based off that single policy decision while purposefully ignoring the most destructive and abusive Executive Administration this country has ever experienced.
@fidelity_axiom, I hear that 100%. Single issue groups on the right are much more supportive of the full package of right-wing policies. The left doesn’t stick together. Part of the problem is that the 08 Obama campaign was able to co-opt the wider activist left (MoveOn.org &c), isolating the leftists who disagree with the mainstream (pro-aerial-execution) positions. And if he wanted to, the President could stop it. This is a profound moral failing, and he is personally responsible.
I tried to write a second paragraph that started with “But…” But Romney would do it too? That’s a pretty startling indictment of the country we live in.