Hope for Gay Conservatives in John McCain?

Well I am a Conservative. I am active in Canadian politics, with the federal Conservative Party of Canada, and the provincial Progressive Conservatives. Luckily for me in Canada, the political spectrum is not obsessed on the social issues (abortion, gay rights, death penalty, etc.) like the United States is. The conservative movement in Canada has almost no focus on any of the social issues, and puts all the energy into perpelling the values of Economic conservatism (small government, less taxes, etc.)

My views are socially liberal (obviously..when your gay your unlikely to be a ragin social conservative unless your an in the closet self-hater), and economically conservative. My beef is I want a smaller government, lesser taxes, and more economic freedom.

Now to get to the USA (sorry for my preamble on Canadian Politics)...the Republican Party under George Bush has been very socially conservative and evangelical. Hell, Bush took advice from the likes of Ted Haggard...

You may not be familiar with this, but there is a group called the Log Cabin Republicans. They are a dilligent group working hard to bring more libertarian leanings to the Republican party.

Bless 'em, because I couldn't do it...I'd be so apathetic if I was in the USA. Tax and spend liberals in the Democrats, and homophobic assholes in the Republicans...

But John McCain has one very interesting vote from the Senate worth noting.

In the early 2000s, George Bush brought forward a bill called the "Federal Ammendment Act" that would ban gay-marriage accross the United States. Currently its a state-by-state issue, while many red states have banned, most blue states have civil unions for gays or domestic partnership agreements available, and only Massechutses has gay marriage legalized.

John McCain voted against the Federal Ammendment Act. He took a stand against those raging social conservatives of the GOP, and voted against it, to leave it up to the states.

Now he still publically claims to be opposed to gay marriage (also remember, so are Obama and Clinton), but I think its a step in the right direction for the GOP, and is a glimmer of hope. I think he has to publically say that because of the strong evangelical faction of the GOP, but I believe his personal views are probably more libertarian.

Regardless if your not a Republican, at least we can take a little sigh of relief that John McCain (who has a surprisingly good shot of taking the presidency in 2008...) has a little more moderate leanings, and has proven that he will take a stand against the Evangelical nutcases...

And he is moderate and more left leaning on a lot of other issues too.

He actually is serious on wanting to deal with global warming...he pissed off Iowa by being opposed to ethanol and such.

Now thats pretending I'm and American and putting myself in your shoes. As far as a Canadian outsider, the only issue that acutally matters to me, that will affect me as a Canadian, is NAFTA, which has to send me to the GOP camp. Canada needs free trade with the U.S....

 

Its sounds to me like you aren't a conservative, you are a libertarian or a classical liberal.

I agree with you on John McCain. But I think the track record of Republicans as social liberals is not as bad as you might expect (I say this as someone pretty liberal on social issues). They talk a great game and then deliver their hard right voters a few scraps, but nothing significant. Was a GOP President with a GOP Senate and Congress able ban abortion and persecute homosexuals? Not really, no. Sure they push the anti-gay marriage issue, but lets be realistic, there is not enough popular support for gay marriage in the US for it to happen anyway. They don't chase down and ban civil partnerships. Do they try to ban abortion? No, but they always try to find some extremely rare form (partial birth, late term, etc.) to ban. They need to throw the religious right a few crumbs.

I think the verbal social conservatism, even if it isn't backed by policy, to be bad enough. It keeps America safe for bigotry. So I still resent it. But nobody's going to get a party that exactly represents their views, I'm sure very few dems and repubs think their party embodies everything they dreamed about, but they vote for them anyway.

 

About ten years ago I had a boss who was gay and conservative, and tried to participate in local Republican Party activities. He said that the anti-gay hatred was so bad that he actually had people refuse to shake his hand when introduced. Some would just rudely walk away as soon as the words "log cabin" appeared in the introduction. He wasn't at all impressed with feigned Republican "tolerance" and spoke sharply about it.

 

I'm not talking about the rank and file. The Republican party is a homophobic party and try to attract the homophobic vote. I'm just saying they do that to get elected but don't deliver much once in office.

 

I'm just saying they do that to get elected but don't deliver much once in office.
The last really nasty anti-gay federal legislation that I remember was DOMA, signed by President Bill Clinton. But I'm sure Republicans were mostly behind that one.

 

DOMA?

Don't ask, Don't Tell?

That sort of liberalized the rules a bit. I still hate "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", its sends a terrible message of government sanctioned intolerance.

 

DOMA?

"Defense of Marriage Act," which was a federal law prohibiting gay marriages even if states legalize such unions. It was introduced by Republican Bob Barr, who is one of the more moderate Republicans. He's also the guy who was pressuring the Pentagon to ban Pagans and Witches from the military. But so far as I know he's never molested a child nor taken a bribe to vote for war, so I wouldn't consider him "rightwing" really, at least not by modern "American" ahem "standards."

Don't ask, Don't Tell? That sort of liberalized the rules a bit. I still hate "Don't Ask, Don't Tell", its sends a terrible message of government sanctioned intolerance.

I agree exactly. In George Stephanopoulos's (sp?) book, he talks about it a bit, and the response it provoked among the Joint Chiefs.

 

And what did the JC's say about it?