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Jens 'n' Frens
Idle thoughts of a relatively libertarian Republican in Cambridge, MA, and whomever he invites. Mostly political.
"A strong conviction that something must be done is the parent of many bad measures."
-- Daniel Webster
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Thursday, February 06, 2003 :::
The Newest Malcolm writes:
But, to be fair, gay voters are so entrenched on the left end of the spectrum that a Republican can't have much reason to court them. (Andrew Sullivan has a recent article about the scattershot far-left agenda of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.) Looking at this fact solely in terms of political strategy, it doesn't seem very shrewd. Quite apart from all the reasons an individual has for maintaining independence itself, wouldn't gays have more leverage if their votes could be won by either party?
Iris might be surprised by the number of gays who vote Republican -- according to the New York Times (before Raines took over), Republicans got a third of the 1998 homosexual vote for the U.S. House of Representatives (so claimed here). The NGLTF isn't representative of all gays -- in fact, it's pretty clear from the piece he wrote that they don't represent Andrew Sullivan.
On issues specific to sexual orientation, the Democratic party is generally going to be more in line with gays. But many Republicans are more interested in freedom and capitalism and genuine small government than in statutory enforcement of societal norms. And some gays will vote for those Republicans, given the opportunity -- the NGLTF gays clearly won't, but more libertarian gays will. If Andrew Sullivan were American, I'd like to think that he would.
::: posted by Steven at 1:57 PM
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