Rep. Eric Cantor Says Republicans Need to Be More Inclusive on Gay Rights
Now that the Republicans are getting a taste of what it’s like to be a minority, some of them are starting to rethink their whole “Let’s take the country back to 1850!” platform, including Virgina Rep. Eric Cantor, who told George Stephanoploulos on This Week that the Grand Ol’ Party needs to be spending less time being the party of “No” and more time developing solutions to actual problems and reaching out to all people, even the gays. At least, that’s what he infers. Watch the clip closely and you’ll see Cantor doesn’t actually say anything about gay rights at all, but rather offers up some soothing “inclusive” platitudes.
His “platitudes” don’t “soothe” me. The only things I like about this clip are 1) George-ous and 2)Cantor’s almost-missable repudiation of Limbaugh. Cantor’s a glib hack with republican star ambitions. The republicans can’t itemize new ideas because they don’t have any.
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A republican party for inclusiveness? NOT going to happen, not while it needs and relies on the right wing religious nutjobs. Why on earth would any sane gay voter want to vote for a party that doesn’t want them, their equality or other basic civil rights? All the GOP cares about is lower taxes (their number one priority), no access to health care for all, no regulation of the financial services markets, privatization of just about everything. However, what they can’t come up with is, how do they replace socialized programs such as the military, fire, police, public schools, public libraries, medicare, medicaid, social security, FDA, FCC, FAA and how would they pay for all that? Their new face is in the form of Rush Limbaugh. Is that the best they can do? Michael Steele on the other hand is nothing more than sheer window dressing by the party and so transparent.
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Inclusive to the GOP leadership means that we shouldn’t be jailed and mrudered for being perverted monsters. It means little else when you ask them about actual rights.
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This is easy. The leadership of the GOP does not believe in expanding civil rights protections to gay Americans. It’s that simple. They oppose any law or policy that recognizes LGBT people. That’s why they oppose expanding federal hate crimes laws–laws that already exist and include harsher penalties for crimes based on, you guessed it, religious bias. That’s why they oppose any recognition of same-sex couples–even going so far as to officially oppose laws that would grant hospital visitation rights. Simply put, the GOP is still beholden to the far right religious zealots whose power over public opinion is small and shrinking. When the GOP leaders wake up and realize they’ve been left behind by fair-minded Americans, perhaps then they’ll finally tell James Dobson to go to hell. Until they do, they will remain in the political wilderness.
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damn he’s gay. really, really gay. the kind of gay that cruises park restrooms and offers bj’s to undercover cops.
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So even if they change their official platform on LGBT equality they have already demonstrated their real views. They are basically admitting that they will change their ideology just to get votes. I don’t like the sound of that. So they will pretend to tolerate LGBT just to get their votes?
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@ sioraiocht,
You mean 850 BC right?
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Alas, Cantor appears to just be following the leader: GOP president Michael Steele also went down this path before reversing course completely. Either spell out exactly what the party is willing to do to be gay inclusive, or stop delivering these generalized platitudes as part of the “hip-hop-ization.”
The “many ideas” Cantor speaks of have yet to be itemized. And they need to be.