Scott Shackford on the Interest in Gay Republican Candidates
Gay conservatives have been getting more attention as the Republican Party struggles with its identity. American opinion has shifted significantly to support top issues among gays and lesbians, particularly in support of marriage recognition. Support for gay marriage among evangelical Christians has doubled over the past decade, according to one poll. The Republican Party has declared the primacy of heterosexual marriage even in its most recent presidential platform, but it's hard to visualize how the Republican Party will be able to sustain any position that can remotely be called anti-gay moving forward. This ambiguity about what the Republican Party might look like five years from now is not just about the relationship between the party and religious conservatives. The party is fractured with debate between Tea Party activists and the establishment, between defense hawks and non-interventionists, between the business interests who have fixed the game to financially benefit themselves and those who want it to stop, and in other major policy issues as well.
So in this context, it makes sense that the three gay Republicans running for Congress are drawing significant media attention across the country. Scott Shackford takes note of the press coverage and asks two of the candidates what they see as symbols of this shifting party identity.