Steele's Aim Off on Social Issues

Concerned Women for America ^ | 3/13/09 | Ken Ervin

[LowCountryJoe]

From the GQ blog -- Q & A with Michael Steele

Q: Do you have a problem with gay priests who are celibate?
A: No, it’s your nature. It’s your nature. You can’t—I can’t deny you your nature. Q: Let’s talk about gay marriage. What’s your position?
A: Well, my position is, hey, look, I have been, um, supportive of a lot of my friends who are gay in some of the core things that they believe are important to them. You know, the ability to be able to share in the information of your partner, to have the ability to—particularly in times of crisis—to manage their affairs and to help them through that as others—you know, as family members or others—would be able to do. I just draw the line at the gay marriage. And that’s not antigay, no. Heck no! It’s just that, you know, from my faith tradition and upbringing, I believe that marriage—that institution, the sanctity of it—is reserved for a man and a woman. That’s just my view. And I’m not gonna jump up and down and beat people upside the head about it, and tell gays that they’re wrong for wanting to aspire to that, and all of that craziness. That’s why I believe that the states should have an opportunity to address that issue.

Q: So you think it’s a state issue?
A: Absolutely. Just as a general principle, I don’t like mucking around with the Constitution. I’m sorry, I just don’t. I think, you know, in a pluralistic, dynamic society as the one that we have, every five years you can have a constitutional convention about something, you know? I don’t think we should be, you know, dancing around and trying to amend it every time I’ve got a social issue or a political issue or a business issue that I want to get addressed. Having said that, I think that the states are the best laboratory, the best place for those decisions to be made, because they will then reflect the majority of the community in which the issue is raised. And that’s exactly what a republic is all about.

Q: Do you think homosexuality is a choice?
A: Oh, no. I don’t think I’ve ever really subscribed to that view, that you can turn it on and off like a water tap. Um, you know, I think that there’s a whole lot that goes into the makeup of an individual that, uh, you just can’t simply say, oh, like, “Tomorrow morning I’m gonna stop being gay.” It’s like saying, “Tomorrow morning I’m gonna stop being black.”

Q: So your feeling would be that people are born one way or another.
A: I mean, I think that’s the prevailing view at this point, and I know that there’s some out there who think that you can absolutely make that choice. And maybe some people have. I don’t know, I can’t say. Until we can give a definitive answer one way or the other, I think we should respect that.

Q: How much of your pro-life stance, for you, is informed not just by your Catholic faith but by the fact that you were adopted?
A: Oh, a lot. Absolutely. I see the power of life in that—I mean, and the power of choice! The thing to keep in mind about it… Uh, you know, I think as a country we get off on these misguided conversations that throw around terms that really misrepresent truth.

Q: Explain that.
A: The choice issue cuts two ways. You can choose life, or you can choose abortion. You know, my mother chose life. So, you know, I think the power of the argument of choice boils down to stating a case for one or the other.

Q: Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?
A: Yeah. I mean, again, I think that’s an individual choice.

Q: You do?
A: Yeah. Absolutely.

Q: Are you saying you don’t want to overturn Roe v. Wade?
A: I think Roe v. Wade—as a legal matter, Roe v. Wade was a wrongly decided matter.

Q: Okay, but if you overturn Roe v. Wade, how do women have the choice you just said they should have?
A: The states should make that choice. That’s what the choice is. The individual choice rests in the states. Let them decide.

Q: Do pro-choicers have a place in the Republican Party?
Absolutely! A: How so?
You know, Lee Atwater said it best: We are a big-tent party. We recognize that there are views that may be divergent on some issues, but our goal is to correspond, or try to respond, to some core values and principles that we can agree on.

Q: Do you think you’re more welcoming to pro-choice people than Democrats are to pro-lifers?
A: Now that’s a good question. I would say we are. Because the Democrats wouldn’t allow a pro-lifer to speak at their convention. We’ve had many a pro-choicer speak at ours—long before Rudy Giuliani. So yeah, that’s something I’ve been trying to get our party to appreciate. It’s not just in our words but in our actions, we’ve been a party that’s much more embracing. Even when we have missed the boat on, uh, minority issues, the Bush administration did an enormous amount to advance the individual opportunities for minorities in our country. In housing. In education. In health care.

Q: How’d you miss the boat?
A: Well, we missed the boat in that we don’t talk about it. We don’t share that part of the story. We don’t understand and appreciate it enough to actually get out and articulate it. We miss it, we just completely miss it. We don’t see it for what it is, as a part of our philosophy. And so I’d like to see us do more of that, to engage in that conversation.

For this Steele is too far to the left? He's embracing the concept of federalism. Plus he knows that far too many people in this country don't view life-at-conception the way that most of us do. The way to actually reduce abortions in this country is to focus on states making legislation, not to try and fix it at the federal level of government at the moment. And I do not know how it is that he's wrong about the homosexual issue at all. Perhaps many of you pitchfork wielders enjoy the minority status of the party and like the big government angle as long as it's the government that you'd prefer it to be.

I'm

[muawiyah]

He's made OTHER statements about the same topics over the years he's been in public life. You must take ALL the statements together. They do not add up to him being pro-abortion or wishing to let the homosexual lobby take over America (which, alas, is not the case with Obama the cannibal king and his band of merry men in sheer tights).

I get a distinct feeling that a whale of a lot of Freepers don't know beans about Mr. Steele, or Maryland, or FOXNEWS.

[muawiyah]

Possibly, but Michael Jackson did try to become a white woman!

[DirtyHarryY2K]

I get a distinct feeling that a whale of a lot of Freepers don't know beans about Mr. Steele

Click on the keyword "steele" and read up. We know all we need to know about Mr Steele. RINO

[muawiyah]

You want to call me a RINO get me elected to public office first ~ a RINO is necessarily someone one who is elected to office after running under the Republican banner.

You are thinking of "Country Club Republican", which I am not ~

Regarding Mr. Steele, I've seen more hate toward him here than the cr*p spewed by the neo-Nazis in the Washington Post.

I do believe some of you are not informed, and some of you are not Conservatives.

[Liz]

Steele has been leashed-up by the pukeneos. They tell him what to do and what to say. Today on MTP, puke David Frum gave Steele his marching orders----weaken the party's pro-life principles........or else.

The pukeneos have a lot at stake---they are getting $paid handsomely to $squat in the Repub Party......pocketing $big bonuses to religiously cleanse the party of the so/cons the pukes despise.

Puke Billy Kristol blows whichever way the Beltway Winds are blowing. Kristol went from Moynihan's staff to Quayle's, from The Weekly Standard to the NYT, from Bush to Giuliani to McCain. And the crumbum is still as secretive as ever....spewing blue-blood beltway Republicanism, and smirkingly kicking conservatives to the curb.

Just what the Nation needs---another Democrat Party. Obaman's sex life is about to improve greatly---as Frum and the RINO-pukeneos line up for a turn under Obama's desk.

================================================

And now------The Winner of the 2008 Best Election Night Performance Award in the category of:
"Neos Know Nothing About this Republican Disaster."

Billy Kristol (McC campaign mastermind)

"Thank you very much. But I could not have done it without the help of all the
punkeos--David Frum, Michael Gerson, David Brooks, Richard Perle.....and
my Dearest Daddy."

"Sniffle---my Dearest Daddy (who was Giuliani's foreign policy advisor) said,
"The historical task and political purpose of neoconservatism is.....to convert the
Republican Party and American conservatism in general, against their
respective wills, into a new kind of conservative politics suitable to
governing a modern democracy."

"Sob."

"I especially want to thank punkneo Douglas Feith for faking documents on his
home computer so we punkneos could dupe the president."

"Without Doug we would not have been able to transfer trillions of US dollars
into the Mideast, into the pockets of war profiteers, which enabled Richard Perle
to startup an oil business in Iraq with his cut."

Kristol smirked: "Making Iraq safe for Perle's oil business with US tax dollars was truly a noble punkneo effort."

==============================================

COMMENTS The 2008 political entrail readings showed the crucial conservative base stayed home. Too bad the pukes "forget" to tell McC that would be one outcome of the punkneo-RINO bi-partisanship. Be aware that many senior neocons are rank opportunists who squatted in the Repub Party for their selfish stealth purposes-----they are actually former Trotskyites that flew the coop when Stalin executed their hero.

AS FREEPER TADSLOS COGENTLY POSTED: "People forget that candy-ass Kristol, and his crony, metro-sexual Brooks are the original makeover artists for McCain post-2000. They are McC's original groomers and media switch operators.....obsessed with religious cleansing of the party. Kristol at his most smirkiest---urging McCain to fire his 2008 staff, to start all over at the 11th hour, as McC's numbers tanked. Shows how how ill-conceived, advised, equipped and poorly managed McC's campaign was. But then, what else to expect from a Republican candidate made up of neopunks Kristol and Brooks."

Kristol championed McCain early in the election cycle to push his boy to the nomination. Kristol "support" for Palin had nothing to do with conservatism and everything to do with gauging the political winds to get his maverick liberal senator elected president. Kristol is the media poster boy for why D.C. plutocrats are completely out of touch with the rest of the country.

Watching Kristol smirking and squirming in his Fox seat on election night as McC lost his bid for the presidency was a consolation prize to this abortion of a 2008 election cycle.

[DirtyHarryY2K]

I didn't call you a RINO. That was directed at the chairman of the RINO party.

Reagan had it right. The leaders of the RINO party have thrown Reagan's’ Values into the ash heap. They keep moving the goalpost left and that leaves us voting between the lesser of two evils liberals (RINOS) and socialist leftists (Democrats)

NO thanks.

[muawiyah]

Mr. Steele isn't an elected public official at the moment. He has a lifelong history of opposing abortion.

He also doesn't publicly advocate flensing homosexuals and neither do you, but I have seen statements by people for whom flensing would be among the least of the things they'd like to do to them.

Your public position on gays isn't any different than Mr. Steele's.

Again, you gotta' be elected to be a RINO.

[Liz]

Mmmmm........sicko pukeneos are REALLY good at disseminating agit/prop. Notice how the pukes foam at the mouth as they kick conservatives around.

Now, if the pukes don't like the conservative Republican party----that's too frickin' bad. LISTEN UP PUKES: THERE IS NO PARTY SPLIT because you people have been marginalized.

It's hard for dumbhead nincompoopneos to figure this out, so let's be clear: David Frum, Michael Gerson, David Brooks, little Billy Krystal and his Daddy, Dumbo Douglas Feith, Rooty Ghouliani, and that disgusting cabal of pukeneos are OUT. We don’t want them anywhere near the party leadership or influencing the leadership.

These termites have been eating away at the party structure far too long. Sicko nincompooneos are obsessed with religious cleansing of the party. The pukes sucked off loser after loser----Ghouliani, Mehlman, Martinez.......the list goes on and on. Worst of all, the stupeneos led us over a cliff into Iraq......transferring massive amount of US wealth into Mideast hellholes (and into the pockets of war profiteers).

Chief Puke, Richard Perle, is actually going into the oil business in Iraq-----thanks to blood spilled by young Americans, and his cut of trillions of US tax dollars.

Pukeneos also foisted amnesty on the US, saddling us with millions of drug runners and criminals undermining US ntl security........and conniving Third World lowlifes using multiple stolen identities who have destroyed our economy.

Pubbies need pukeneos like Obama needs another tax cheat.

[Liz]

The punks are devoid of the distinctly American character that strengthens the freedoms only we Americans have. The calculating punkneos are a threat to our system of government. We, the GOP so/con army, need to give pukeneos a hefty drop-kick out of an unopened window.

NOW HEAR THIS The Repub party's winning roots are solid pro-family, pro-life and pro-traditional marriage.....it is the compelling agenda that gave Repubs unprecedented power for a generation in Washington and across the land.

The neo-punks are the source of all Repub losses----at the top of their hidden agenda is religious cleaning of the Repub party and kicking so/cons to the curb. The neo-punks also foisted the amnesty atrocity on the nation.

The two-faced punks squatted in the Repub party, faked noises like they were conservatives, NEVER EVER went to a pro-life really, and made an utter shambles of the Repub party.

We conservatives are not asking, we are DEMANDING that Repubs solidify the base by denouncing the neo-punks in no uncertain terms. We do not want the punks anywhere near our party, nor do we want these punk losers influencing our leaders.

THE FACTS ARE THESE As Dims takeover three branches of the federal government and and state and local legislatures all over the land, we can safely conclude the "powerhouse punk-neo political strategy" (/sarc) is a rank loser.

The punks diabolical "foot in each camp" strategy destroys the two-party system. The punks pursue their own interests.......to the detriment of our country.

Repubs were appalled to see Joe Lieberman shadowing McC, making sure he read from the punkneo script, while writing $100,000 checks to the Dims.....as LIEb pulled off his "bi-partisan scam." RINO Rooty Ghouliani was another disaster, forced on the party by the stupid punkneos. Candidate Rooty made political history with his losing punkneo-managed prez campaign----spending $60M and getting one delegate (that he shared).

ADDENDUM It would come as no surprise to find that abortion-worshipping, ACLU-fellating crook Madoff financed the punks' activities with sub rosa financial dealings. This needs to be looked into.

[Lauren BaRecall]

Very powerful and sensitive article, and RIGHT ON.

Steele is not only wrong, he's wrong in a simplistic, shallow way. It's better we found out now that he's not the leader we've been looking for.

You're right. GOP survival is dependent upon his leaving.

BTW, I feel like we true conservatives are starting to coalesce.

[Lauren BaRecall]

If that's the case then why was Steele so moved to “clarify” his GQ statements? I believe that he was quoted accurately in that article. It's all cut from the same cloth - you know, the type of gaffes he's making nowadays.

[mbraynard]

"Where Mr. Steele errs, obviously, is in comparing sexual attractions to skin color."

No, where Mr. Steele errs is in making pronouncements on subjects irrelevant to his job.

[TheFourthMagi]

Q: Do pro-choicers have a place in the Republican Party? Absolutely! A: How so? You know, Lee Atwater said it best: We are a big-tent party. We recognize that there are views that may be divergent on some issues, but our goal is to correspond, or try to respond, to some core values and principles that we can agree on.

What that quote says is that the Right to Life is not one of the Republican Party's 'core values and principles', according to the "big tent" approach and the views of the current RNC Chairman.

Both Steele and the "big tent" garbage need to be kicked out of the Republican Party.

[Liz]

MEMO TO STEELE FROM REPUBLICAN PARTY DONORS

1. Our liberty is from God, not Government.
2. Our sovereignty is in our souls, not the soil.
3. Our security is through strength, not surrender.
4. Our prosperity is from the private sector, not the public sector.
5. Our truths are self-evident, not relative.

SOURCE Congressman Thad McCotter’s five GOP fundamental principles http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2204561/posts

If Steele does not “get it” he should “get out” of our party.

[muawiyah]

The question isn't whether it's a faith rendition of what he said, but the fact that the GQ reporter cut the statements free of the overwhelming CONTEXT of everything the man has said and practiced over the last several decades.

Besides, GQ is not a trusted Conservative source, and they have a history of indulging in soft porn. It is possible that Mr. Steele was naive regarding what these guys use to peddle their stuff, but there's no excuse at all for Mr. Wildman or the CWA or various Freepers who indicated they were satisfied to accept every subtle nuance GQ could wrench out of a brief interview as "TRUTH".

Bet GQ is surprised at the breadth and depth of their market penetration eh!

[wagglebee]

Fantastic list!

[Pistolshot]

If the GOP is to survive, Steele needs to go.

Correction: If CONSERVATISM is to survive in the GOP, Steele must go.

[wagglebee]

Correction: If CONSERVATISM is to survive in the GOP, Steele must go.

I believe the RINOs are operating under a false assumption that the GOP can survive without conservatives. The reality is that without conservatives, they are no different from the 'Rats and the loss of conservatives would force them to become even more liberal to compete for special interest money.

I've spent some time recently studying the Whigs of the early 19th century. It seems that many Whigs viewed abolitionists the same way that RINOs view conservatives and my guess is that these Whigs thought they would be just fine if the abolitionists would just go away. Eventually, the abolitionists had enough and formed the GOP and within a few years the Whig party collapsed. Within a decade of formation, Lincoln was elected and the GOP became the dominant party for the rest of the 19th century.

I realized that fund raising makes it more difficult for a new party to emerge today compared to 150 years ago. However, I also believe that if a group of highly visible conservatives were to leave the GOP and do so with the backing of people like Limbaugh, the money would follow.

[LowCountryJoe]

If that's the case then why was Steele so moved to “clarify” his GQ statements? I believe that he was quoted accurately in that article.

I don't know why he felt the need to clarify; everything he is quoted as saying seem pretty reasonable to me.

Specifically, and in contaxt, what is it that you find so offensive about what Steele had said?