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Recognition of LGBT Rights, Same-Sex Marriage Imperils Republican Party: Ken Blackwell

09/02/10-by Bridgette P. LaVictoire
“If Republicans flinch on marriage, America could have eight years of President Obama.”  This is how Ken Blackwell and Ken Klukowski conclude their little editorial on the Republicans warming to marriage equality.  The irony is, of course, palpable since the two men who represent the Family Research Council and Liberty University, respectively, appear incapable of grasping the problem that their Social Conservatives are already facing inside the Republican Party.

Where the Tea Party once split the Republicans between the Moderates and the Conservatives, now the social and civil issues are threatening to split the Tea Party with more and more people demanding that the ‘Jesus Freaks’ get the ‘hell’ out of the movement.

Blackwell and Klukowski are both appalled by the recent decision by Judge Vaughn Walker strike down “part of the California Constitution defining marriage as one man and one woman,” and by the recent decision by Ken Mehlman to come out of the closet and to start “pushing the Republican Party to support the homosexual-rights agenda.  Republican leaders are beginning to weigh in on where they stand, including on the agenda’s centerpiece: Redefining marriage.”

They went on to say :

“The Republican Party has an official position on same-sex marriage. It’s found in the 2008 GOP platform, which is the clear and uncontestable Republican position until the 2012 convention. When one of your authors (Ken Blackwell) was serving as vice chairman of the GOP Platform Committee, there was a singular focus on producing a party platform that fully reflects the vast majority of Republican Party members.

“The GOP platform could not be more explicit: Marriage is the union of one man and one woman. The fundamental institution of human civilization should be preserved as it has been known through the entirety of American history and Western civilization. Supporters of same-sex marriage had the full opportunity to make their case to the party. They made it, and they lost.”

Of course, as always, they mean the Judeo-Christian-Greco-Roman part of Western Civilization since many outside of those regions had very different definitions of marriage.  Of course, they also begin talking about how there is no right to marriage equality in the US Constitution, and that it is a state issue.  This would be true if it were not for the fact that the Federal Government recognizes marriages given by states and the Constitution requires all states to recognize the laws and contracts entered into in other states.  Of course, their big problem is the supposed rewriting of the Constitution from the bench by ‘activist judges’, which is a very old and tired ploy.

On this point, the two men are absolutely correct

“Republican leadership is working hard to prevent a party split. Millions of Tea Party supporters are justifiably fed up with the GOP, and threatening to abandon the GOP in favor of a third party if Republicans do not fully attack out-of-control federal spending and power with a commitment to constitutional government.

“That danger cuts both ways.

“Social conservatives cannot be played as fools by the Republican Party. They are not “useful idiots.” If Republican leaders abandon social conservatives and the party platform, then they will face the same kind of disaster they could be facing if Tea Partiers abandon the GOP. — Millions of social conservatives will either stay home, or will vote for a third-party candidate who takes up the mantle of marriage, life, faith and family.”

They point to 1912 without actually explaining the events of that year.  In 1912, former President Theodore Roosevelt and then President William Taft had a major falling out.  Roosevelt went on the war path, and when he was unable to take the Republican Party back from Taft, he formed a third party called the Progressive Party.  Roosevelt and Taft’s split ended up splitting the Republican party and President Woodrow Wilson was catapulted into the Presidency.

The GOP today is in a very dangerous spot.  In all likelihood, the split that their leadership is trying to avoid is coming, and it will not be pretty.  In fact, in the wake of Glenn Beck’s little revival on 28 August, that split is coming sooner than the leadership can cope with many Beck fans now wondering openly why they were at a Mormon revival.

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