One of the many interesting sub-plots of the 2014 election year is the possibility that Congress may welcome its first openly gay Republican.
Dan Innis is running for a House seat in New Hampshire. He is a businessman, entrepreneur, Dean of the Whittemore School of Business and Economics, and is married to a man. It was his husband who convinced him to run, saying “You’ve got to do this” to see if Innis could “make a difference.”
Richard Tisei is running again for a House seat in Massachusetts. He lost by just 1 point in the general election to John Tierney, and will face him again this time around. He has already served as a state senator. He is also married to a man.
Carl DeMaio is running for a House seat in California. He is a businessman who provided training and consulting specifically to financially-troubled government entities to help them become more efficient. He has also served as a city councilman for San Diego. At the time of writing this I do not know if DeMaio is married to his partner, but it is my understanding they have been together for six years.
None of these men are making their sexuality part of their campaign. It will be interesting to see what the liberals do, should these men make it through the GOP primaries. Kevin has often pointed out that liberals reveal their ultimate hypocrisy when faced with an opponent who would traditionally be a liberal. As a living example, DeMaio and his partner were booed while walking in the Gay Pride parade, because DeMaio is a Republican and was running for Mayor.
While both political parties tend to lean on wedge issues for securing easy votes, liberals seem to have mastered the exploitation of identity politics. As Kevin has pointed out, whenever someone threatens the liberal stranglehold on one of their core identities — such as a gay Republican or a black Republican or even a female Republican — liberals go after them with a special kind of fervor.
I’ve seen liberals call black Republicans “Uncle Tom”, even use the “N-Word.” Kevin has documented several cases where liberals have outed gay Republicans in vicious manner. Of course we all know what happens if you’re a strong conservative woman with a special needs child on the national political scene.
Entrenched political interests, Republican and Democrat alike, always fear being exposed as hypocritical. But they also fear losing their death grip on whatever voting blocks they control. A gay Republican getting elected to Congress means that maybe gays start realizing they have other options besides automatically voting Democrat. So it will be interesting to see how these gay Republican contenders will be treated should they make it to the general election.
I think we will start to see the entrenched liberal interests exposing themselves as the hypocrites they are. After all, progressives staunchly support the idea that “the ends justify the means,” hypocrisy be damned. They are the party of “say anything, do anything to win”. Obama is proof enough of that. Ultimately, hypocrisy can be forgiven, but losing a monopoly on a voting group is permanent.
Of course, the GOP has a way to go on this front as well. Gays aren’t exactly welcome in most Republican ranks. I’m sure there are some reading this article right now who would never vote for an openly gay person. Well here’s a message to my fellow conservatives — get over it. If you are truly a conservative, then you should acknowledge that the government has no right to tell anybody who they can and cannot be with.
While I understand the opposition to redefining marriage, consider that this argument about gay marriage is only an issue because the government inadvertently created this wedge issue decades ago when it turned “married” into a special status. Marriage existed long before the U.S. government did. In truth, the government shouldn’t have the moral authority to define marriage at all.
EDITOR’S NOTE: ONCE AGAIN, THESE CANDIDATES WILL BE SUBJECT TO DERISION FROM THE TOLERANT LEFT. THE EMBRACE OF TOLERANCE DOES NOT CROSS PARTY LINES. DIVERSITY CELEBRATION IS ONLY FOR THOSE THAT FOLLOW IN LOCKSTEP WITH THE PROGRESSIVE AGENDA.
fair and unbalanced 