I am a proud evangelical Christian Republican and a native of Mississippi. I moved to Iowa and fell in love with the political process here during caucus season.
I love how candidates crisscross the state and make a point to engage with voters. I love that voters can sit down with candidates and ask them the questions that we the voters — not the media — want to present.
2011 was a big year for Republicans. We saw leaders emerge and saw candidates drop out. We saw job creation and education being seriously debated, and I felt that the concerns of the American people were heard — for the most part.
What I didn’t hear much of this year was support for marriage equality from the Republican front-runners. I support marriage for gay and lesbian couples and have been vocal about my support, even when it hasn’t always been the popular thing to do in my party.
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I heard a lot of rhetoric about gay and lesbian Americans that didn’t fit with what I know to be true and what many Republicans believe. As an evangelical Christian Republican, I know many people who hold conservative values like equality and freedom, but those voices were lost this year. However, I believe in my heart that things are changing. If it weren’t for the loud voices of a few in our party, I do believe more Republicans would stand up in support of marriage equality.
I didn’t always feel that way and my journey toward full support has been a long and intensive one. One of the things that changed my mind on this issue was my children. I used to watch my kids and wonder why equality is a non-issue with them. They love and support their friends, regardless of their sexual orientation, race, gender or religion.
Then I realized that I was tired of watching adults judge each other while my children could embrace the differences in their friends. After all, that is what being a Christian is all about.
What I learned from the 2012 Republican Caucus was this: If we don’t stand together this year, we will lose. What is our party if not the party of freedom? This is a matter of freedom, and I want people to be free. It’s the American thing to do.”
—Former Linn County Republican Party chair and Rick Perry for President committee chair Kathy Potts, on why she supports marriage equality, in an op-ed in the Iowa Gazette. Photo via the Gazette.
Danny
Nice lady, good for her for standing up for equality and freedom. Another third of Republicans agree with her. In another 150 years, perhaps it will be 51% that do. For now, most Republicans oppose human rights for women and for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people. But understanding Republicans should keep up the good fight for human rights but not support candidates that violate them.
LittIeKiwi
If only the wimps from GOProud could learn something from this woman.
And I hope that if the party continues on its path of pandering to the scum of America that she will, in turn, cross the aisle.
the crustybastard
Y’know — she’s right. Jesus didn’t tell his followers to busy themselves with judging and condemning their neighbors. Conservatism was never actually about compelling the government to be increasingly intrusive, but more about expecting people to take personal responsibility for their decisions. Marriage is simply the legal manner by which one takes personal responsibility for their own family.
Christian conservatives are in reality neither Christian nor conservative, but simply moralistic busybodies at best, and fascist theocrats at worst.
The problem with the Republican party is that rather than controlling their own message and defining themselves, around the mid-’80s they started to allow the loudest moralistic busybodies and fascist theocrats to control their message and define the party, having adopted that soulless sociopath Lee Atwater’s “lie-cheat-or-steal-to-win-at-any-cost” political assholery as its guiding political principle.
By now, the classical conservatives have utterly lost control of the Republican Party, and a schism is in the works because they’re finally beginning to realize the lunatics have rendered their own party too extremist for them.
Good. I hope the current two-party system is destroyed before it destroys the country.
GayGOP
This is the type of Social Conservative this country needs more of. As someone who is an out and proud, Christian, hard-line conservative Republican, I strongly support and encourage Republicans to behave more like this woman, and less like Rick Santorum.
tinkerbell
I wonder why she is the “Former Linn County Republican Party chair….” Perhaps because the Republican Party has been captured by the Evangelical Right and is SO out of touch?
We have won, they have lost, but we still need to fight the final battles until we gain equality.
Shannon1981
I think this is one brave lady. Wish there were more like her.
Tony G.
Awesome person! Thanks for your voice of reason and support!