Make No Mistake: GOP Chairman Michael Steele Spits on Gays

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Is Michael Steele just putting us on? Wait, don’t answer that. The new GOP chairman who wants to Obama-fy the republican party — using hip-hop tactics to attract people of color! — also pretended to come to the table with gays just this month. But now he’s performed an about-face, and once again declared same-sex loving homos second-class citizens.

On Fox News Sunday earlier this month, Steele said he wanted the GOP to reach out to pro-choice voters as well as the gay community. (See video.)

WALLACE: You are one of the co-founders of something called the Republican Leadership Council which supports candidates who favor abortion and gay rights.

STEELE: Yes.

WALLACE: Does the GOP needs to do a better job of reaching out to people who hold those views?

STEELE: I think — I think that’s an important opportunity for us, absolutely.

But nobody is gonna want to open the door for this man — since he just got done telling radio host and raging homophobe Mike Gallagher that there’s not even room to discuss civil unions for gays. Chatting just after Sean Penn and Dustin Lance Black won Oscars for Milk, Steele made clear his views.

GALLAGHER: Is this a time when Republicans ought to consider some sort of alternative to redefining marriage and maybe in the road, down the road to civil unions. Do you favor civil unions?

STEELE: No, no no. What would we do that for? What are you, crazy? No. Why would we backslide on a core, founding value of this country? I mean this isn’t something that you just kind of like, “Oh well, today I feel, you know, loosey-goosey on marriage.” […]

GALLAGHER: So no room even for a conversation about civil unions in your mind?

STEELE: What’s the difference?

But why should we have expected anything less? Back in 2006, while bidding for Maryland’s U.S. Senate seat (which he lost), Steele carried over his lieutenant governor stance against gay marriage and made his anti-gay views a cornerstone of his campaign.

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