This was BEFORE the Log Cabin...

True Confessions:
Did I ever tell you that I
was once a Republican?

Yup, I sure was! A card carrying, trigger happy, slash the taxes, keep out of my life Republican. And in many ways I still am. The problem is the GOP isn’t being led by Republicans any more. Nope. For some time now they have been increasingly under the control of two small vocal minorities, The Far Reich and The Religious Reich as I call them. Both wrap themselves in the flag and hide behind carefully selected passages of the Bible and pursue a program of hate and dissention by creating a “culture war” where one really did not need to exist. You see, all this political brouhaha over the “morality of gay rights” and the “morality of abortion” is being argued in the wrong arena. It was Martin Luther King Jr. who most sagely said that one cannot legislate morality, the best that one can hope for is to legislate good behavior. By the same token moral issues do not belong in the political arena, they rightfully belong in the the pulpits and churches and religious publications, you know... the places where discussions of moral issues traditionally belong.

For many many years the Republican Party was run by the moderates. During that period the GOP was an honorable party, truly the party of Lincoln. It was in those days that they passed the Civil Rights Act despite Democratic filibuster after Democratic filibuster and putting it on LBJ’s desk for his signature. Most people under 40 don’t know that it was the Republicans that made the dream of civil rights a legal reality. Back in those days the Republican Party really DID stand for smaller government and actually put their votes where their collective mouths were rather than giving the concept empty lip service. And the GOP really was all about lower taxes, legitimately lower, not by phony baloney tax “rebates” or “refunds” but real honest to God lower taxes! Interesting, no?

Back then the Democratic Party was the Dixie-cratic Party, the party of the white deep south majority, the party of segregation and the status quo. “But what about Kennedy??? HE was a Democrat and HE was a GREAT President!!!” you may well ask. It’s true, not every Democratic politician from each of the (then) 48 states was a Dixie-cratic bigot any more than the Republican politicians of today’s 50 states are all from the Far Reich! Which brings me to what prompted me to finally crawl out of my cave and put hand to keyboard once again. For I have seen a glimmer of hope in the GOP, a sharp lancet of light piercing the black religious gloom that has descended on the Grand Old Party like a funeral shroud. For in the Indianapolis papers I found the following news story that I feel is important enough for others to read that I am willing to take the chance of being sued for copyright infringement by passing it around:

June 19, 2005

Gay rights a political tightrope for Daniels
Within the GOP, moderates, conservative core clash over course governor should take.

By Mary Beth Schneider
mary.beth.schneider@indystar.com


Gov. Mitch Daniels is straddling a divide in the Republican Party over how far the party should go in recognizing gay rights.

On one side is a growing number of moderates who want to see Daniels lead the way toward a more inclusive party. On the other side is a vocal conservative core who already thinks the governor has gone too far.

Micah Clark, leader of the 12,000 members of the American Family Association of Indiana, a conservative, pro-family group, used his Web site to call Daniels "a disappointment in the family values department."

He criticized Daniels for not being out front in favor of issues such as a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and for having an office policy banning discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity.

Meanwhile, Bill Oesterle, Daniels' former campaign manager, recently spoke in favor of a defeated city ordinance that would have banned employers from discriminating against gays and transgender people.

The emotional speech before party leaders came at a Marion County Republican dinner. Asked to speak on the direction of the GOP, Oesterle called for inclusiveness and praised Republican City-County Councilman Scott Keller for co-authoring the anti-discrimination ordinance.

Clark led the fight against the ordinance with Eric Miller, the leader of the 42,000 members of Advance America and Daniels' primary-election opponent for governor. Advance America describes itself as the state's largest pro-family, pro-church, pro-tax reform group.

"I don't believe in the big tent," Clark said. "I don't believe you get to be that big offending a large portion of your base."

People on both sides of the issue say the debate is not limited to Indiana but is occurring in Washington and nationally.

"This is a war on a national scale," said Kathy Sarris, an Indianapolis restaurateur and gay Republican.

Keller, who was the lone Republican to vote for the gay rights ordinance, said the party is in a tug of war for its soul.

"At some level there's quite a split between the far right and a much more populous moderate center of the Republican Party," he said.

This isn't a subject Daniels wants to talk much about. He declined an interview on the topic, instead providing a brief written statement saying he is "doing everything I can think of to reach out across all the lines" that have divided Hoosiers.

He cited geography, ethnicity and income -- but not sexual orientation or gender identity.

At a news conference covering a range of issues, Daniels was more specific when asked about his views.

"I don't believe in discrimination, period. We had that (anti-discrimination) policy in our campaign. We left it in place. Basic rights of assembly, employment, housing and so forth ought not be limited based on a person's race, creed, color or lifestyle," he said.

His employment policy has drawn national attention among conservative groups. The Washington-based Concerned Women for America posted an article about it on its Web site that began: "Indiana may soon begin hiring men in dresses in order to satisfy the governor's affirmative action plan."

Syd Steele, an Indianapolis attorney who is president of the newly formed First Republicans, said that if Daniels has made groups like that unhappy, "he must be doing something right."

Steele said the group was formed to give a voice to Republicans who believe the party must return to its roots as the party of Abraham Lincoln and not be defined by such things as the amendment banning same-sex marriage.

"It's amazing the number of people who say that it's about time," Steele said.

And though Clark said Daniels won on the strength of conservative votes and "should dance with the ones that brung ya," Steele said the true base of the party are the centrists.

Steele thinks that by backing nondiscrimination policies such as Daniels' and the one considered by the City-County Council, the party would gain members.

"We may lose some extremists, but that's their choice," Steele said.

He would like to see Daniels and other Republican Party leaders be more outspoken in their support of such issues.

"I'd like to see him take the lead," Steele said.

Clark and Miller, though, think the party can gain voters only by standing firm on such issues as gay rights and abortion rights. It isn't enough, they said, for Daniels to have signed legislation on issues social conservatives cared about, such as additional restrictions on abortion.

"We want our elected officials to be proactive," Miller said. "We'd like to see him be more proactive in banning same-sex marriage."

Daniels has said that he supports state law that bans same-sex marriage and that Indiana "very well may" need to amend the constitution to include the ban.

Keller -- who said he hasn't given up on passing the ordinance -- thinks it was headed toward passage until Clark and Miller began an e-mail campaign, deluging council members with criticism.

Chris Douglas, a Republican who heads the Indiana Rainbow Chamber of Commerce, a pro-gay-rights business group, said council members aren't used to that kind of attention.

"They were utterly buffaloed," he said.

In the end, five Democrats joined 13 Republicans in voting down the ordinance.

Clark noted that four black Democrats were among the "no" votes and said that the party should be courting the votes of blacks who share the GOP's social conservatism, not the votes of gays and lesbians.

Douglas, though, said tolerance is the way toward electoral success and offers Daniels as proof.

"Daniels' victory over Miller was convincing," he said. "It was a victory over the prejudice that Miller was selling. Now it's very clear that Daniels is standing on the principles he enunciated in his campaign of nondiscrimination."

Clark said that he is not telling people they shouldn't support Daniels. But he does want to get Daniels' attention so that in the future, he'll be more likely to back conservative views.
Call Star reporter Mary Beth Schneider at (317) 444-2772.

Finally! A Republican willing to stand up to The Radical Reich Wing bully-boys! Sure, in the end the Religious Reich did get their way, but only by using their usual bully tactics of intimidation and fear mongering, two things they are expert at. Hmmmm, I wonder where Jesus taught that in the Bible?

I still support the second amendment and I’m a lifetime member of the NRA... my Daddy got that for me when I was 13 or 14. And I’d like to see a federal right to carry law passed, allowing each and every citizen the right to carry a concealed weapon, after passing a proper training course that is. The crime rate would PLUMMET when criminals have no idea which potential victim is armed! In Texas and Arizona where they have right to carry laws the crime rates there have dropped BELOW the all time lows. You see, it’s not tough gun control laws that criminals fear, they don’t even pay any attention to them any way, it’s armed citizens they fear! But Bush and the Far Reich seem reluctant to take up the cause of strengthening the second amendment, and that certainly doesn’t sound like a conservative stance to me!

I still support smaller government and TRUE lower taxes, not “refunds” that give the treasury away at the expense of a huge deficit! Bush managed to triple the size of the government during his time so far in office and has not only wiped out the surplus Clinton (may God curse his lecherous name... wait, on second thought why? His only real crime was getting caught!) left us, sinking us into a national debt that will take CENTURIES to pay off! And that is NO conservative in MY book!

Funny how I, who have been so often labeled a “radical liberal”, can have so many more conservative traits than the man who has been twice elected to lead the ultra right conservatives. There’s some food for thought now, isn’t it?

That's my opinion and you are welcome to it.

Julie Johnson aka “The Great Spoon“