The Republicans have given up on their don't-ask-don't-tell fig leaf position on gays in the military, but I don't know why the Democrats would let them sneak away from it so easily.
This is a gift: The GOP is firmly identified with a position that most of the country, leading military figures, and lots of people in uniform find absurd, obsolete, and offensive.
So how come the Democrats aren't branding the GOP in every reference and every venue as the party of DADT--the party, moreover, of malevolent, insensitive, reactionary gay bashing?
This is an easy one. The Republicans would like to walk away from this issue, but they can't disavow it. The country may have undergone a renaissance of sexual-identity sensitivity (not least of all because everybody's got a gay relative), but the GOP base is still virulently anti-gay. Put on the spot, even the most reconstructed Republican will continue to say these weird, dopey, incredibly awkward, swatting-at-flies sort of things about gays. And it isn't hard to find old-school Republicans who will reliably slide right back into the most belligerent, comical, from-another-planet, I-haven't-had-sex-in-forty-years-but-here's-what-I-think-about-homos, sounding stuff.
A couple of years ago, at a hardcore conservative conference, I heard the National Review's Rich Lowry argue that the GOP was going to go down the drain on this issue--he was specifically talking abut gay marriage--that the country was ever-more-steadfastly distancing itself from the hardcore Republican view; indeed, that the family values argument had pretty much come to include the gays.
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I find the whole idea of Dems being pro gay a myth anyhow. Just read through some of the comments these wonderful progressive people on this very site post regarding the gay community. You want another shocker? Go over to Redstate and read through the comments sections on posts regarding gay issues. Sure, there are some hateful comments, but no worse than a lot of the things posted here, and there are alot of positive live and let live comments to be found.
The Democratic party is no friend of the gay community, and this gay man is sick of being told that it is.
Why?
Because it was the Democrat's that put DADT in Place and it was Signed into Law by a Democrat President.
Simple isn't it.
I think they're more interested in our money. You'd think they would figure out that this is the way to keep the GayTM open.
Because they really don't feel any different than the Republicans?
Because too many Dems actually are Republicans?
Because their imaginary friend who hates gay people is the same imaginary friend as the Republican imaginary friend who hates gay people?
Probably because this President has fired hundreds of troops so far for the crime of being gay.
Here is the chance for the democrats to undo this damage, and lock up the LGBT vote for a long time. Repeal DADT. Don't dither. Don't play politics. Don't triangulate and calculate. Just do it, and do it now, and you will have us on your side for the forseeable future.
Hint: the LGBT evangelical right-wing haters and murderers are NEVER going to vote for you democrats, no matter how much you dither on gay issues. All you gain by dithering is disdain and failure to bother to vote, from your natural supporters.