Title: Huckabee: There’s room in the GOP for supporters of gay marriage (channeling Bathhouse Barry) Source:
Hot Air URL Source:http://hotair.com/archives/2015/02/ ... or-supporters-of-gay-marriage/ Published:Feb 3, 2015 Author:Allahpundit Post Date:2015-02-03 13:58:03 by Hondo68 Keywords:None Views:2282 Comments:9
How many of our commenters agree? Im surprised to see the guy whos angling to be the social-con warrior of the primaries this welcoming to righties who diverge on a key values issue, especially since he threatened to leave the party last fall if the GOP ever formally becomes pro-SSM. So explain this to me. If legalized gay marriage is so abominable that state officials should refuse to follow a Supreme Court ruling on it and so appalling that Huck would have no choice but to quit the party if Republicans warmed to it, why would he want gay-marriage supporters in the GOP in the first place? If you believe some polls, were not that far from seeing a pro-SSM Republican majority: More than one has found support for gay marriage among Republicans near 40 percent, with 61 percent of young Republicans in favor according to a Pew survey last spring. The looming SCOTUS decision on SSM will affect those numbers, probably negatively, but its not unthinkable as Millennials replace seniors within the electorate that even a majority of Republicans will support legalized gay marriage 10 years from now. Whats Hucks proposal for the GOP then? Maintain a formally anti-SSM position even though it contradicts the views of a majority of members? Or shift to a pro-SSM position and forfeit social conservatives, wholl presumably split off into an ineffectual third-party movement thatll have no representation in the top ranks of government? Its an odd thing to encourage participation within your party of people who hold views so abhorrent to you that youd be forced to sever ties with them if they gained a majority. Welcome to the party so long as you never, ever get your way.
That said, the soundbite here that had the media beating up on him yesterday is a bad rap. Every headline I saw about his CNN interview claimed that hed compared the gay lifestyle to drinking or swearing, evidence that he saw it as some sort of vice. Well yes, a minister likely will see it that way, wont he? Watch the clip, though, and youll see that he also compared being gay to liking classical music or opera, a taste he doesnt share and one he obviously doesnt consider sinful. Go figure that media coverage would omit the innocuous analogy the better to frame him as the tsk-ing Christian schoolmarm. Good catch too by Eddie Scarry in noting that Huckabees description of being gay as a lifestyle isnt so different from former gay-marriage opponent Barack Obamas choice of words when addressing this topic. Thats the second time today that a Republicans being kookified for using the same language as the leader of the Democratic Party.
Poster Comment:
Huckabees description of being gay as a lifestyle isnt so different from former gay-marriage opponent Barack Obamas
So Carl Rove's victory plan is for Huck to impersonate a gay Kenyan and lure in a few borderline Christians and queer Republicans, and then drop out and endorse the Jeb Bush/Lindsey Graham ticket?
I don't get what the heck Huckabee is doing. I hear a lot about how Huck has a more liberal economic agenda as does Santorum as sort of American versions of Christian Democrats in Europe but all I ever hear them mention is social warfare issues. He just comes off as annoying - using Beyonce as an example of bad behavior because she is too sexualized in her music videos.
Just horrible campaigning - the kind of issues you bring up if you have been in an echo chamber for over a decade and the issues that animate that echo chamber sound weird to those outside of it.