GOP strategist Steve Schmidt, who was the architect of John McCain’s presidential campaign, believes the Republican party should drop it’s opposition to gay marriage and gay rights to help grow the party. Read more about it below, see photos and watch a video.
Steve Schmidt
Is the GOP running the risk of becoming the ‘religious party’ with its opposition to same-sex marriage? Steve Schmidt, a GOP operative for a number of top Republicans in the party including Dick Cheney, Arnold Schwarzenegger. and most recently John McCain, says the GOP needs to endorse civil unions and stop using the Bible as rationale for gay-marriage opposition or face ‘increased marginalization’.
He spoke to the DC convention for the Log Cabin Republicans — a grassroots group for gay and lesbian Republicans saying:
“If you put public policy issues to a religious test, you risk becoming a religious party. And in a free country a political party cannot be viable in the long-term if it is seen as a sectarian party.”
“If the party is seen as anti-gay, then that is injurious to its candidates” in Democrat-leaning and competitive states, he said.
Steve Schmidt, whose sister is a lesbian, predicts gay marriage will create a bigger and bigger divide between the GOP and the electorate in the years ahead. He also believes that as young voters age, they may adopt conservative views on the economy and national security, but they will not abandon liberal, social beliefs.
Interesting. Once again, social conservatives — the core of the GOP — are called out as the problem for the GOP not winning elections. The 30 states that have adopted constitutional marriage amendments have passed them by an average margin of 68-32 percent but of course that isn’t part of this new enlightened strategy.
What ever happened to Republican orthodoxy? What ever happened to core values and the right to defend them instead of casting them off to appear more hip and socially appealing? Is compromising really the way to win hearts and minds? Social conservatives! Go sit in the back of the bus — but make sure you still vote GOP and give us your money and hours and hours of volunteerism!
Personally, I don’t think social issues win elections but I do not run from them, hide them, or even ’set them aside’ because they are an integral part of my Christian belief system. I prefer we focus on taxes, bloated spending and national security. But for me, social issues become an issue when appointed uber-liberal judges become activists and forcibly insert themselves into my life.
Now, could someone remind me what Steve Schmidt did during John McCain’s failed 2008 campaign that shows he knows anything about what real Americans think? Just wondering.
More photos and a video from ‘Steve Schmidt: GOP, Civil Unions, Gay Marriage’ are below.
Steve Schmidt Photos
Steve Schmidt Video
April 18th, 2009 at 8:34 am
But Cathryn, if you yourself are not getting in a gay marriage, how does someone else, who may well live hundreds of miles from you getting into one “insert” themselves into your life? You likely would have no dealings with them anyways as they wouldn’t be part of your niche. I am just wondering why you desire to control their piece of “lifes pie?” since we all have different tastes at times. I think gay marriage may offend conservatives who like “old fashioned values” but should they use the law to block it? I think its up to the church what they want to do, and wouldn’t like to see any church sued to perform new classes of marriages they may not agree with. Certainly they would find amenable local branches somewhere that would. If you have a right to set up your own “style” of household, why shouldn’t you be free in marriage too? Maybe is sounds weird to have same sex marriage. But many things are weird in the straight world too. Maybe it should just be about equity and opportunity and forming a stable family unit as a good thing, though some have different types of partners in mind than the traditional Catholic church. I think the first book the “system” made us read was the Scarlet Letter in grade school after Dick and Jane. But all the same, we are all people and is it right for some of us to block others? It doesn’t mean you have to approve or give your blessing, but just not stand in the way. Sounds kind of Clintonesque though.
April 18th, 2009 at 10:43 am
> Personally, I don’t think social issues win elections but I do not run from them, hide them, or even ’set them aside’ because they are an integral part of my Christian belief system. I prefer we focus on taxes, bloated spending and national security. But for me, social issues become an issue when appointed uber-liberal judges become activists and forcibly insert themselves into my life.
What nonsense. We have a secular government, and it’s not its role to enforce your Christian values any more than it is its role to enforce the values of a Satanist, a Muslim, or a Buddhist. The social values that the government enforces need to be arrived at through logic and reason, not through religion. And asserting “I believe X because I’m a Christian” is not a logical or rational argument for X. In fact, it’s little more than gibberish.
Christians who feel that it’s their job to force their values onto the rest of society are the devil.
April 18th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
I agree with the previous two posters. How can the Republican party praise the Constitution, raise the issue of the violations of it from the left, talk about liberty, and then tell the world that homosexuality is “bad” and “wrong” and not to be legalized or acknowledged in any way? What about our Declaration of Independence, which states, “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”? We have a group of gay citizens who support conservative ideas, called the Log Cabin Republicans. Is it wise to insult those who share our views? If you insist on Conservatism being based only in Christianity, did not Jesus ask you to forgive? Isn’t condemning homosexuality a bit hypocritical?
I am a Conservative. I do not like what homosexuality is, I don’t think it’s “normal”, but I think it’s best to live and let live. I have friends who are homosexual, and I like them. We never discuss their sexual preferences, or mine. I am not a traditional Christian. I believe in a Creator, I call him God, I’ve no doubt that Jesus lived and died (nothing made up could have survived this long and spread so far) and I believe he said most of what the New Testament claims he said. I draw the line at his being the son of God, any more than the rest of us are the children of God. I draw the line at his being resurrected. Do you want me, and others like me, to be thrown out of the Republican party, and the conservative movement altogether, because we don’t agree? Do you really think we can afford that kind of discrimination? Isn’t insisting that others accept your truth as the only truth a little like the socialist dems tactics? Do you have hard proof that Christianity is the only true religion? I think Islam claims to be the only true religion, too. I haven’t studied religion, but I’d wager all religions make that claim, but have no hard evidence.
The socialists are about to take over this great nation, and I don’t think it’s the time to quibble about what people do in their own homes, behind closed doors. IT’S TIME WE OPENED OURS.
April 18th, 2009 at 4:04 pm
there are legitimate logical reasons to exclude gay marriage. the gay community has hurt itself badly many times by trying to weaken “the family”.
although i am generally a supporter of gay marriage, i would only support it if it is between TWO people AND divorce comes with a 50% division of assets.
if society allows homosexuality (which it does) … then there are very good reasons to promote fidelity and monogamy between couples — both hetero and homosexual couples.
however, some of the more radical gays want to allow legal polyandry and weaken divorce laws that punish infidelity, not to mention the very small but vocal gay groups that want to legalize pedophilia — note that this group is NOT the mainstream in any way, but it does exist.
lesbians especially WANT gay marriage … few of the gay groups that want to weaken marriage are lesbian.
April 18th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
[...] I found was a very fairly and thoughtfully written description. This all started after I read a post on RightPundits.com. A person was, with great acrimony, asking, “What ever happened to [...]
April 18th, 2009 at 10:44 pm
That bald guy is right. It seems so evident to me, personally, that gays should have the same rights as straights, that I use it as a litmus test. Even if I otherwise agree with a candidate, I will not vote for anyone who supported DOMA or otherwise opposes gay rights; I just don’t trust their judgment.
April 19th, 2009 at 8:59 am
This is NOT conservatism. I believe that perhapas he is one of the biggest reasons McCain is not President.
April 19th, 2009 at 9:33 am
“…social conservatives — the core of the GOP…” This is the GOP’s whole problem right now. The GOP has USED social conservatives to win elections, but now that the worm has turned, thou shalt see how once tools are used, they are dropped. The true agenda of the GOP has nothing to do with social issues at all. It has everything to do with money, and who has it.
April 19th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
> This is the GOP’s whole problem right now. The GOP has USED social conservatives to win elections, but now that the worm has turned, thou shalt see how once tools are used, they are dropped. The true agenda of the GOP has nothing to do with social issues at all. It has everything to do with money, and who has it.
I think you actually have it a little backwards. The GOP didn’t use the social conservatives, the social conservatives basically took over the GOP and its platform, and used it to further their own social agenda.
The true agenda of the GOP *should* have nothing to do with social issues, and it *should* have everything to do with money (and more specifically, making sure that the people have more of it and the government has less of it). But that’s not what it is right now. The social conservatives are still using the GOP to try to push their social agenda and do things like try to overturn Roe v. Wade and ban gay marriage and so on.
If the GOP agenda really did have nothing to do with social issues, I would happily vote Republican (I’m sick of seeing almost half of my paycheck go to taxes). However I just cannot do that in good conscience with the GOP social agenda being what it currently is. Until the influence of the social conservatives is removed from the GOP, I have no morally justifiable choice but to vote Democrat, or Independent. Social liberties are worth more than taxes.
April 19th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
the worm has turned
Oh arch! You mean like how the dems used the Black community and now the Hispanic community to get elected … and then legislate so that no one can get ahead in order to keep people dependent on ‘the party’ and thereby ensuring their votes from now until eternity? Is that what you mean?
The ppl making money are the deep pockets in the democratic or progressive party … they corner the money market for themselves. Only the elite chosen few can make money. They have to keep everyone else poor in order to keep them dependent.
April 19th, 2009 at 4:41 pm
Well the repubs had nothing to sell to either community really, so you can’t use somebody who doesn’t buy your “campaign” incoherance(poor McCain, what was he thinking? Why did he hire all those bushy’s to run it? they are so yesterday with their rovian tactics”. I dare this thought—we are in a new political era and even the demographics are new. The media is still three steps behind what is happening in the new politic. “the voice of the people” is now saying, “we don’t want no stinking litmus test” to turn on obama. Instead they want to see his work in total and then decide. They are actually being rational and patient and he knows the clock is ticking. ITs a mutual trust. I think you guys are on the wrong train and your clocks are moving too fast and you are focusing on the wrong stuff. The body politic today isn’t warming up to your “gotcha” mode. They left the theater and are having a barbaque outdoors and your left on the stage talking to yourselves. That is how profoundly different things are shaping up to be.