Posted on 04/17/2009 1:01:30 PM PDT by Sub-Driver
McCain Strategist Warns GOP Risks Becoming 'Religious Party' Steve Schmidt urges Republicans to begin voicing more support for civil unions and gay rights.
FOXNews.com
Friday, April 17, 2009
John McCain's top adviser from the presidential campaign urged fellow Republicans on Friday to warm up to gay rights and warned that the GOP risks becoming the "religious party" with its opposition to same-sex marriage.
Steve Schmidt, in his first political appearance since the election, spoke at the Washington, D.C., convention for the Log Cabin Republicans -- a grassroots group for gay and lesbian Republicans.
He urged Republicans, in the near-term, to endorse civil unions and stop using the Bible as rationale for gay-marriage opposition.
"If you put public policy issues to a religious test, you risk becoming a religious party," he said. "And in a free country a political party cannot be viable in the long-term if it is seen as a sectarian party."
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
Seconded!
All political parties are sectarian. I prefer to be a in sect without sodomites. I don't care if we lose every election until kingdom come. If sodomy is a right, I want to be wrong.
So as I understand his point, we need to choose between being a sectarian party or a Gay party.
Okay, left me give that some thought.
-Ignore the bible. Check.
-ignore the related health issues. Check.
-Ignore the further degridation of our youth and society. Check.
-Teach our children that perversion is acceptable. Check.
-Support sex acts that result in sharing each others feces. Double triple check.
-Help to encourage our children to learn by example and further public exposure how to participate in these unnatural acts. Check.
I am beginning to think (a recently developed theory) that ‘some’ folks might actually be born with gay sex tendencies and drives, and in my view that is very unfortunate for them, but I sure doesn’t make this behavior publicly acceptable to a point of encouraging others to participate.
Times change, and the inability to adapt to change is yet another successful stereotype the left has pinned to the right.
The same lack of difference turns up in the with/without children stats. That falsifies your hypothesis.
When hell freezes over!
Nam Vet
“”If you put public policy issues to a religious test, you risk becoming a religious party,”
Forget religion! How about NATURE!?? Most neanderthals could figure out female and male long before RELIGION. The primitives everywhere seemed to figure it out. It’s not NICE to fool mother nature!
Had enough rino’s yet? They twist words and meanings just like the liberals.
No, it's not. He might as well have said "Republicans should join as the RINO wing of the Democrat party to avoid future defeats".
agreed
if we told this country we ARE THE PARTY OF man and wife, mother and father we would easily win.
I know plenty of Democrats who hate homosexual agenda and if we made this a big subject we most certainly could take many seats.
The Dem running in those districts which are working class, black and Hispanic would really back off from the homos but all we do is tie the Dems to homosexuality and we will win for a cert
as you say though the GOP is spineless about it for fear of name calling and yet the majority of Americans oppose homosexuality.
We divide the Dem party by using this tactic as well, I would love to see many Dems near the election squirming away from homos
The Democrats have more religious beliefs than Republicans. Consider the faith based religion of man-caused global warming. It's just that their beliefs range from Pagan to New Age and are ultimately damaging to America.
I'm not sure I exactly understand what you're saying. What words? Marriage?
I believe Goldwater's position would still be a federalist one. It's not the business of the federal government to define marriage, it should be left to the states. Certainly, his colleague Buckley, who wasn't a proponent of gay marriage, was squeamish about a US Constitutional amendment to ban it, but was in favor of a State Constitutional ban.
As for changing the meaning of words to appease the opposition, I don't believe that's what's being done. We live in a Representative Republic that should and does bend to the will of the majority. The US Constitution doesn't address marriage in any way, nor should it in my opinion. And, if the majority of people agree, then marriage should be defined in which ever way a state's legislative body (not judiciary) defines it. If one state wants to recognize gay marriage and another doesn't, so be it.
Like I said, I would be happy just to codify civil-unions and move on to the next subject.
Steve, you do realize, don’t you, that advice from you right now is sort of like Matt Millen telling an NFL general manager “you’re doing it wrong”.
Just because Steve Schmidt has a lesbian sister doesn't mean I should change my beliefs to satisfy him!
Let him deal with his family issues at home and leave the party politics out of it!
I don't care what his sister does. Just don't expect the rest of us to accept her life style because he does!
Me too...but I think Rush is saying that to date there are no viable third parties to vote for and that creates a big problem for us
Not all conservatives are Christian evangelical types. Up to an extent he is giving sage advice. But instead of shutting out the same Christians they need to develop a party that is friendly to other types of conservatives as well. You can not just embrace one thread. It takes many threads to make a rope. Instead of trying to define conservatives as being of one persuasion we should recognize that every subculture in this society has a conservative type that can be brought out. We can and should develop as many as we can that will fit under the umbrella.
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