I have an Election Day question:  Gay Republicans?  For that matter, Female Republicans?  Or Black Republicans?  Or Hispanic Republicans?  With the current GOP platform and conduct, how do any of these exist?

As I and many others have said before, the Republicans keep up their efforts to make this election about the economy since January 20, 2009 (No mentions of George W. allowed except by complaining Democrats) to the exclusion of everything else – even as they take repeated shots at the “social issues” that affect every minority in the country.  No.  Strike that.  Women make up 51% of the population.  They’re the majority and yet their issues are still considered “out of the mainstream.”  

Through all of this, the Republicans have acted completely shocked when called out on their duplicity.  They haven’t actually co-opted the text of “It’s the economy, stupid.” but they’ve tried to steal the spirit.  Time and again I’ve heard GOP mouthpieces maintain that “What Women (or Gays or Blacks or Hispanics or whoever) are interested in is the economy.  Well of course they are.  We all are.  It’s straight out of Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  Food, shelter, and safety are part of the first two levels.  So it’s natural that I want to know I’ll have a job so I can keep a roof over my head, food on my table  and provide myself with a comfortable retirement.  But there are three more levels to Maslow’s pyramid, and the idea is to reach the top, not stop after achieving the minimum.  So it’s natural that long before I retire, I want full citizenship – which includes marriage equality – for myself and all Gay Americans.  I want women to be viewed as something more than morally bankrupt baby makers and I’d like to see us reach not a post-racial society but to an omni-racial one in which no one has to pretend to be color blind because color won’t be a point of judgment.

None of these things can happen under this GOP.  All of them require change and the grasp that there are unique challenges that face women and Gays and people of color that cannot be generalized to the whole population of the United States.  And yet there are Female Republicans and Black Republicans and Hispanic Republicans and, most disturbing to me, Gay Republicans.

In fact, the Log Cabin Republicans, the GOP’s Gay contingent have endorsed Mitt Romney.  Now the only way I see that any Gay person could take part in the Republican Party is because they are wealthy enough to sidestep nuisances like anti-sodomy laws and the Defense of Marriage Act.  Ann Coulter has praised them.  Let me repeat that:  Ann Coulter has praised them for recognizing that the GOP opposition to Gay marriage “doesn’t mean we hate you” it just means, well – Frankly, I don’t remember how she parsed out the right to marry from the people who are being denied that right and tried to make it sound rational.  Love the sinner, hate the sin, I suppose.  Still better, the Huffington Post quoted a Log Cabin Republicans board member’s remarks at the Republican National Convention:  We don’t listen to what a candidate actually says.  We try to feel where they seem to stand.”

No statement in recent memory has more deserved a giant WTF.  Really?  We don’t listen to what the candidates say?  We try to “feel” where they seem to stand.  Not where they stand, mind you.  Where they “seem” to stand.  Again, WTF?  I’m the first to urge us all to have a healthy dose of cynicism when listening to politicians.  They’re the most adept at finding ways to cast the best possible light on the awful things that have happened under their watch (like the financial meltdown) and to cast massive aspersions on the achievements of their opponents (like Obamacare).  But stop listening?  Interpret their meanings in ways that have nothing at all to do with the words they so carefully choose?  Are the Gays just calling in body language experts to discern the “truth?”

My head is spinning.  Certainly you can say you believe in the economic message of the Right.  Even though Trickle-Down has proved itself to do none of the things it’s supposed to do to invigorate the economy, you can take up the mantle of Ronald Reagan, claim that Trickle Down’s voodoo saved the 1980s and will save the 2010s if we’ll only let it.  Even though austerity measures are tearing Europe apart, you can say you believe the Republicans have the right idea about slashing spending on everything but defense and that doing so will make great strides toward lowering the national debt.

The trouble with the Republican view of the world is that it is very simple.  It assumes, among other things, that in the face of a crisis, we all abandon our ability to consider multiple facets of a situation.  The bottom fell out of the economy, ergo; every other aspect of life will be wiped out of the consciousness of the citizenry.  Everyone will be focused on jobs, jobs, jobs and how best to make more.  That may have even held true to some degree in 2009 and 2010, but contrary to the Republican pundits, things are actually getting better.  We’re still far behind our target, but the actual crisis is over.  And by and large actual crises just don’t last very long, so “pay no attention to the man behind the curtain” tactics will only work for a brief period.  In short order, everyone returns to three-dimensional existences with all kinds of issues and considerations.

Yes, the economy is important.  It’s very important.  It’s been giving gray hair to everyone from President Obama down since 2009.  Two things to consider here, though.  First, the Republicans claim to have the answer to the slow recovery.  There is nothing in their history that proves this.  In fact, the similarities between Romney’s “plan” to George W’s would indicate they only have the answer to destroying everything again.  Second, the economy is a big shiny object like the ones magicians use to keep their audiences from noticing the “trick” they’re pulling elsewhere.  But it’s not shiny enough to keep women from noticing their doctors trying to insert transvaginal probes into their vaginas without an invitation (those things are big!) or to keep black communities from noticing how hard it’s suddenly gotten to vote or keep Hispanics from noticing that they’re afraid to leave their homes for fear they’ll be taken by the police or keep Gay couples in long-term, committed relationships from noticing that they have none of the rights of heterosexual couples because they can’t get married..  That’s really the heart of things.  Either the Republicans can only deal with one thing at a time or they think that’s all the average American can handle.

I’ve now gone on for over 1,000 words and I haven’t answered the original question:  Gay Republicans?  One of the mysteries of writing is that sometimes you don’t have control over where the story is going.  This is one of those times.  I still don’t understand how theoretically doing a better job with fiscal side would make anyone from any minority group move to the right.  I wouldn’t care how beautiful American’s cities were, how productive our factories, how current our defense systems if I felt that the government was sticking a shiv in my back (or a transvaginal probe in my vagina) every day.  Moreover, I think it would make more sense for the minority Republicans who have deluded themselves into thinking they can change the party’s social mores from within should join the Democrats.  Democrats listen and sometimes they change.  The minority Republicans have a much, much, much better chance of changing the Dems’ economic policies than they ever do of making the Republican Party officially say homos are just like everyone else.

Log Cabiners and the rest of you, switch now!  It’s your only chance!