Another piece of the 2012 Republican Party strategy is falling into place: New Hampshire legislators want to repeal marriage equality legislation legitimately passed by the same legislature.
It's all perfectly legal, of course, if they can pull it off, but it doesn't seem like much of a long-term governing strategy to just try and repeal everything the other side did when they held a lawfully elected majority.
More to the point, as litigation and legislative hearings have advanced in recent years, the "fear of the Other" arguments conservatives have dined out on for decades against gay Americans are getting increasingly hysterical and threadbare, reaching their zenith when counsel for the Prop 8 defenders admitted in court that he had absolutely no idea how marriage equality would threaten opposite-sex marriage.
The straight marriage divorce rate hovers at about 50%. All the gay people in America are maybe 3-4% of the populace. They can marry in six states, give or take, and a few more offer second-class status via civil unions.
The disparity of numbers, and the money the right wingers, the GOPers, and several religious denominations spend on keeping gay people's rights under their collective thumb- versus trying to put the state of marriage on their side of aisle- underscores that it is pure politics that drives the Gay Menace arguments every two or four years. Politics, hate, fear: the electoral recipe for creating jobs from the Right. But for the ragout of wacko potential candidates for the GOP presidential nomination, it couldn't happen to a nicer set of people.
It's all perfectly legal, of course, if they can pull it off, but it doesn't seem like much of a long-term governing strategy to just try and repeal everything the other side did when they held a lawfully elected majority.
More to the point, as litigation and legislative hearings have advanced in recent years, the "fear of the Other" arguments conservatives have dined out on for decades against gay Americans are getting increasingly hysterical and threadbare, reaching their zenith when counsel for the Prop 8 defenders admitted in court that he had absolutely no idea how marriage equality would threaten opposite-sex marriage.
The straight marriage divorce rate hovers at about 50%. All the gay people in America are maybe 3-4% of the populace. They can marry in six states, give or take, and a few more offer second-class status via civil unions.
The disparity of numbers, and the money the right wingers, the GOPers, and several religious denominations spend on keeping gay people's rights under their collective thumb- versus trying to put the state of marriage on their side of aisle- underscores that it is pure politics that drives the Gay Menace arguments every two or four years. Politics, hate, fear: the electoral recipe for creating jobs from the Right. But for the ragout of wacko potential candidates for the GOP presidential nomination, it couldn't happen to a nicer set of people.
New Hampshire’s Legislature is likely to hold a vote to repeal the state’s law permitting same-sex marriage next January, a development that would force the GOP presidential field to confront the issue on the eve of the first-in-the-nation primary.
It’s a debate that so far has left Republican candidates squirming and could shatter any notion of a GOP “truce” on social issues designed to keep the primary focused on the economy.
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