He writes:
It’s an argument that’s been around in this community since before there were Log Cabin Republicans: Should progressives vote for “moderate” Republicans with the hopes that their middle-of-the-road views will somehow win over their more rabid right-wing colleagues?Funnily enough, we Libertarians have been asking the same question about "moderate Democrats" like Hillary Clinton, Howard Dean, Bill Clinton, John Kerry, and Evan Bayh for years now. Except that when we ask it, we're attacked for holding such individuals to their actual records on gay issues.
That is a rallying cry that is being used once again to justify the candidacy of Kerry Healey, the GOP candidate for [Massachusetts] governor who swears that she is different than outgoing right-wing Gov. Mitt Romney — a man who painted himself as a moderate in the last election and has been a disaster locally and (if he has his way) nationally for this community.more . . .
I am strangely reminded of Bill Clinton -- hailed by gay Democrats in 1992 as a revolution for gay people, but who ended up leaving gay people with two of our most enduring setbacks: DOMA and the military's anti-gay policy. However, the double-standard persists -- when Republicans don't live up to expectations, they are to be condemned. When Democrats don't live up to expectations, they should be endorsed, heavily funded, and (re)elected so that they can be "better educated by the community on our issues" and given a second/third/twentieth chance to vote for gay equality under the law.
The very same Democrats who support an anti-gay Senator from Massachusetts in his bid to win the presidential election on a policy platform that endorses state-by-state anti-gay constitutional amendments will turn around and hastily attempt to muzzle pro-gay-marriage Libertarian opponent Michael Badnarik. Voting for actual, bona fide pro-gay candidates, such as Libertarians (who support universal legal equality for all people, including gays), never comes into the equation in the bizarro world of Democratic partisan politics.
The very same Democrats who support an anti-gay Senator from Massachusetts in his bid to win the presidential election on a policy platform that endorses state-by-state anti-gay constitutional amendments will turn around and hastily attempt to muzzle pro-gay-marriage Libertarian opponent Michael Badnarik. Voting for actual, bona fide pro-gay candidates, such as Libertarians (who support universal legal equality for all people, including gays), never comes into the equation in the bizarro world of Democratic partisan politics.
Much of the mainstream media, most of which are always eager to prove their centrist bona fides in the face of conservative cries of liberal bias, have been slower to open their eyes to the Big Lie of moderate Republicanism. Still, when The New Republic decides to devote an entire in-house editorial to the subject, it’s safe to say that the thin veneer of respectability that has covered many a moderate Republican’s tracks is starting to crack.Libertarians, among other opposition parties, have been pointing out this fact for years -- with significant Democratic approval. Of course, when we make similar observations about the pitiful line-up of Democratic candidates and their claims of "progressive pro-gay values" versus their substantial anti-gay voting records, the silence is deafening.
When The New Republic decides it’s time to put to rest one of the great electoral lies of our time, it’s safe to say that perhaps the rest of us should think twice before falling for the sham once again.Unfortunately, Republican "moderatism" is a smaller sham than the present Democratic sham on gay issues, where Democrats talk like Libertarians but govern like Republicans. Rather than reward such duplicity on gay issues, we should hold our elected officials and candidates alike to a higher standard -- the standard the Libertarian Party and its candidates have been setting since the 1970s.
