If there is hope for the re-emergence of the Republican Party to which I gave a significant chunk of my adult life, it lies in the actions of seven GOP members of the Indianapolis City-County Council on Monday night.
Republicans Will Gooden, Ben Hunter, Robert Lutz, Janice McHenry, Michael McQuillen, Jeff Miller and Jefferson Shreve joined all of the Democratic council members in support of a resolution urging the Indiana General Assembly to reject HJR6. (For anyone who has spent the last couple of years on Mars, HJR6 would place Indiana’s current statutory ban on same-sex marriage in the state’s constitution, and would add gratuitous language outlawing civil unions and official recognition of anything else creative minds might consider “equivalent” to marriage.)
Six Republicans voted against the resolution, but the future of the GOP–if it has one–lies with the seven who refused to be bullied by activists from the far right fringes.
The capture of one of America’s major political parties by extremists has made governing–and civil discourse– virtually impossible. It has already made GOP candidates unelectable in urban areas, and caused wholesale defections elsewhere.
Those seven Republicans understand something that too many of those remaining in the Grand Old Party seem to have forgotten: politics isn’t–or shouldn’t be–religion. When every vote becomes a test of moral purity, when every issue is a contest between Good and Evil, when any deviation from Approved Doctrine is blasphemy and anything less than ardent affirmation is evidence that the errant member has gone over to the dark side, what you have isn’t a political party.
It’s a cult.
Kudos to the seven who refused to drink the Kool-aid. May their numbers increase.
Sheila; it is comforting to know you found the vast number of seven seemingly reasonable Republicans, definitely a minority in that majority. To AGAIN see the true picture of the GOP, read the boxed double-column article in the Star today titled, “Two Views”, ” What’s the State of Our Union?” Eugene Robinson quoted facts and figures regarding the major issues this country and this union are facing today. The opposing “view”, written by Katrina Trinko who is a member of USA Today Board of Contributors, states the usual misrepresentations of Obamacare with all it’s faults. Once again proving that, to the GOP, Obamacare IS the State of Our Union in their minds and hearts and in Congress. I doubt my letter to the editor of the Star will be published but I sent it anyway; also sent a thank you to Eugene Robinson for actually addressing the State of Our Union containing researched and publicized facts.
Thankfully, there is hope, Sheila.
Your line “too many of those remaining in the Grand Old Party seem to have forgotten: politics isn’t–or shouldn’t be–religion” rings truer for those of us who heard one of those six Republicans giving a speech, after the vote, using their personal religious interpretations and convictions as a justification of their vote. This elicited a smattering of applause and a bit of annoyance in me for their use of the more Judaic reference to the deity as the god of my ancestors.
Democrats, especially in gerrymandered districts, MUST vote in GOP primaries! Even if it entails relocating only for voting sakes.. There IS NO OTHER WAY!
Daily Kos post; “The problem is that the intelligent people are of doubt, while the stupid people are full of confidence.” Charles Bukowski, German born American poet and writer.
Sounds familiar to me when looking at government today.