Yes, I wear foundation. Yes, I live with a man. Yes, I'm a middle-aged fag. But I know who I am, Val. It took me twenty years to get here, and I'm not gonna let some idiot senator destroy that. Fuck the senator, I don't give a damn what he thinks.~Armand Goldman, The Birdcage
I saw this, this morning.
Virginia Congressman Denver Riggleman, an Air Force veteran and brewery owner, lost his bid for reelection, losing the nomination in a drive-in state convention to some socially conservative asshole named Bob Good who champions "traditional marriage" and wants to end birthright citizenship.
Why did Riggleman lose his primary? Because he officiated at the wedding of two of his campaign staffers, gay men who worked for him...and conservatives were offended and decided to make an issue of it.
I'd like to go on record and say I probably don't agree with this dude about much and I still think that's bullshit. I mean, I think at this point you'd have to be nuts to be both gay and a Republican. But that's the thing, isn't it? It doesn't matter what I think. It is people's right to follow their conscience and I don't get much to say about it, so long as they're not hurting anybody. I think it's good that Riggleman officiated at those guys' wedding, I think it's even better that they had the confidence and trust in him to ask him to.
Conservatism as I knew it supported personal choices and personal freedom, so long as one was willing to live with the consequences of one's actions. In that vein, one's sexuality is the most personal of personal choices or freedoms...and it is no one else's business unless they wish it to be otherwise.
Saint Augustine famously (allegedly) said "When in Rome, do as the Romans do" meaning you have to adapt and change if you want to be effective, this applies to things like ministry and politics as much as every other aspect of life. If you want to reach people...if you want to reach new people and broaden your coalition...you have to come at people in such a way that you can find common ground with them wherever they're at.
It's like that scene in The Birdcage where Gene Hackman's character, Senator Keeley, and Nathan Lane's character, Albert, start talking about political and social views and find out that they have more in common than they thought they did.
I know gay Republicans, I count gay Republicans among my co-workers and friends. I strongly believe there needs to be a space for gay Republicans in the Republican party. Like I said, people have a right to follow their conscience and have their own beliefs rather than have another set of beliefs imposed upon them. There needs to be a space for LGBT Republicans, just as there needs to be a space for Black or Latino or Jewish or Muslim Republicans and for those who would marry any of them, otherwise the GOP is further along the way to being an Old White Christian Rich Man's Club and further along the path to its extinction than we thought it was. LGBT people are part of our culture, country and society and ought to be recognized as such by all.
And if Republicans cannot understand that and then fall to extinction because of it, nothing of value will have been lost and it's a damn shame that they've come to that.
It's the 21st goddamned century. Without acceptance of change, of difference, of diversity, what is even the point? Without acknowledgement of realpolitik and the cultural, gender, sexual and social revolutions in which we presently find ourselves, without space in it...however grudgingly maintained...for economic, racial, sexual and social justice, Republicanism will die.
It's not just that the day is coming when the best candidate to win a local, federal or state office for the GOP might be a Black conservative transwoman married to a gender-queer pansexual Latino whose politics are nonetheless informed more by the memory of Barry Goldwater than the present reality of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It's that that day is today. It was yesterday, it will be tomorrow.
If not now, when?
The simple goddamned fact is that in our modern world, either or both such partners might be deeply religious, or Republican think-tankers or veterans, or any one of a hundred other things that would have assured them a place in the Republican coalition of the 1990's.
I don't have to like or understand such people, some things are not for me to say. There was a time when this was a conservative viewpoint.
The reality is, in fact, that this day is already come. An LGBT Republican or a Republican of Color could very well be the next Alan Keyes, or Colin Powell, or JC Watts, or could be the ideological heir to Barry Goldwater or Bob Dole. By shutting those people out...and by doing so, so purposefully and being so uncaring of the response, Republicans hurt only themselves.
And both they, and America, are so much poorer for their fear and hate and paranoia towards The Other, no matter what or who that Other may be.
But Republicans are not just poorer for their fear and hate, they are DYING from it.
I don't much care for Denver Riggleman, though I rather suspect he's not a complete asshole. Certainly I think he's better than the guy they nominated to run to replace him. But that's not saying much.
I don't know one single thing about the guys whose wedding he officiated at.
But I do know one thing, without those people...Riggleman or his gay campaign staffers, without making some effort to embrace change and difference...unless something changes, pretty soon there ain't gonna be no Republican Party.
And nothing of value at this point will have been lost.
Part Seven.
Part Nine.
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