A question for gay Democrats

[solarstorm]

They both campaigned as reformers who wanted you renew the GOP in order to curry favor with minorities - and they couldn't even win in a Republican tsunami year.

[Sol]

Nope, not at all. Their opponents will do so much more than they ever would in favor of Queer rights.

[Rockefeller GOP]

Nope, not at all. Their opponents will do so much more than they ever would in favor of Queer rights.

Why do you think that?  It will not forever be set in stone that having an R next to your name prohibits you from being nothing short of a FF for the gay rights movement ... especially if, you know, they're gay.

[bedstuy]

If you're going to vote for John Boehner for Speaker over Nancy Pelosi, I don't want you in Congress. 

It's good that gay people are becoming accepted in the political realm.  But, I don't really care about someone's race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, etc.  When it's an election and a choice between two people, it ought to come down to policy first and foremost. 

And anyway, there was an openly gay Republican in Congress 15 years ago.  It's not historic or important.

[SWE]

Why would anyone be upset that a member of the opposite party lost an election?

[MurrayBannerman]

Why would anyone be upset that a member of the opposite party lost an election?

Maybe, probably unrelated here, they're willing to admit that their party's candidate was horrible for the country in a hypothetical situation.

[Marokai Backbeat]

If you're going to vote for John Boehner for Speaker over Nancy Pelosi, I don't want you in Congress. 

It's good that gay people are becoming accepted in the political realm.  But, I don't really care about someone's race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, etc.  When it's an election and a choice between two people, it ought to come down to policy first and foremost. 

And anyway, there was an openly gay Republican in Congress 15 years ago.  It's not historic or important.

It's not like there's even major legislative issues on gay rights on the national scene, anyway. There was the Matthew Shepard Act with respect to hate crimes, but it's not like it was really a huge victory to gay rights specifically, and is applied incredibly sparingly. What other gay rights issues have any legislative ground to make? Basically everything has just been done through executive action and court rulings.

I think it was King who made the point in a post sometime recently that gay rights isn't really a legislative issue, it's just a wedge issue. Us gays already won these fights; at this point we're just waiting out the clock.

So no, I guess at this point I don't really care if a candidate is gay or not. Particularly when the rest of their positions are less than stellar.

[IceSpear]

Not at all. DeMaio is a pervert. Tisei is okay for a Republican, but Moulton is way better, and is one of our few rising stars to come out of this disaster of an election.

[Flake]

No?

[LeBron]

No. I'm glad Peters and Moulton respectively won. A Republican candidate's sexual orientation isn't going to make me want to vote for them over the Democratic candidate who's closer to my views, in the same party as me, and would do a better job representing me in Congress or the state legislature.

For example, Ohio State Rep. Tim Brown (R) represents an Obama 51% (2012) district, and is the first openly gay guy to serve in the Ohio House. He just won re-election this year, but had I resided in the district, I would have had to vote against him because while I personally do like that he's the same sexual orientation as me and cosponsored the Ohio Equal Housing and Employment Act among all else in promotion of gay rights, he's a conservative at-heart. He voted to reduce the state income tax, voted against allowing an audit on JobsOhio, voted for the sweeping list of Jim Crow bills that passed the Ohio Legislature last year, and has really high ACU, NRA, CoC and RtL ratings.

Aside from gay rights which isn't really much of a legislative issue, the gay Republican is still going to usually be pretty conservative as is the norm with the Republican Party. They'll vote against income tax increases, for gun rights, and would vote for John Boehner for U.S. Speaker or in Tim Brown's case, for Cliff Rosenberger for Ohio Speaker.

I'm not a one-issue voter, either. Even if Tisei or DeMaio got elected and Boehner brought ENDA to the floor for a vote in which Tisei or DeMaio votes "Aye", Peters and Moulton would have done the same thing and I would side with them on a lot of other issues than I do Tisei or DeMaio.

[HagridOfTheDeep]

Honestly, I see many reasons for Democrats to want Republicans like these in Congress. Congressmen aren't worth very much as lone votes for partisan legislation. But as reformers who could potentially push the GOP towards being more accepting of the LGBT community? I think that's worth a lot. The country as a whole is much better off if both major parties support gay rights.

SO in that regard, I think sacrificing two Democratic legislators for pro-gay Republican pioneers is probably a worthwhile trade. Even if I disagreed with them on most other issues. Plus, the House was going to stay in GOP hands anyway, so why not try to craft a better GOP?