We’re pleased this week to welcome a fresh entry in the political new media community in the person of James Richardson and his new web site, The Skepticians. James was the Republican National Committee’s Online Communication Manager for the 2008 Presidential election, supporting John McCain’s bid for the White House and was instrumental in providing many bloggers and new media pundits of all stripes with unparalleled access to the GOP campaign. With all of the discussion regarding the future direction of the GOP following the bloodbath of 08, many Republicans have been fielding their own proposals and Richardson is no exception. In an article sure to raise a few eyebrows on the Right, James comes out swinging with an examination of a ban on gay adoption in Florida and why the GOP needs to embrace the rights and needs of this community.
Is the fight to preserve the traditional American family – think the Cleavers meet the Bradys – one to, as its proponents argue, protect children, or is it means by which to silence the “radical gay agenda” in the United States through institutionalized shame? Cindy Lederman, a Miami-Dade circuit judge, is convinced it’s the latter.
Lederman’s landmark ruling, a move likely to elicit Prop 8-like responses, noted the inherent hypocrisy in Florida state law allowing gay men and women to be foster parents, but not legally adopt, further rejecting the notion that there is “a supposed dark cloud hovering over homes of homosexuals and their children”:
Richardson is well aware how this may be received by his Republican colleagues.
My support for gay adoption will surely be met with hostility and, no doubt, charges of RHINO’ism by many of my colleagues, but the Grand Old Party is at a crossroads and now is not the time for an echo chamber. Homosexual demagoguery is not the answer to the Party’s woes, particularly when gay men and women represent the only demographic in which John McCain bested President Bush (27% to 19% based on exit polling). And as Daniel Blatt notes, gay-hostile rhetoric no longer resonates in suburban areas with soccer moms, many of whom have gay friends or family members, and plays even worse with young voters, 61% of which voted against stripping gay couples of the right to marry.
To my dissenters, let me be clear, I am not advocating some sort of radical “judicial activism.” I maintain that judicial resolution to these matters (adoption, marriage, etc) typically leads to protracted and bitter legal battles, but, what is perhaps equally as distressing is our collective failure as a Party to hold a candid discussion on the emerging role of gays in the Party and society at large – not as outcastes, but as equals.
Gay adoption is just another slice of the larger pie of civil rights for GLBT Americans which are still on the horizon. (As with the rest of the struggles in the civil rights movement, it’s going to get here eventually, but it will take time.) The specifics of this issue seem a bit easier to nail down, though. Opponents rally around a cry that children are best raised in a family including “one man and one woman.” Even were we to accept this as a valid premise it still begs the question of what to do when children don’t have the ideal option open to them. What of single family homes where only one parent remains due to death, divorce or abandonment? Should those children be seized since they no longer meet the one man, one woman test? And is a home in the care of the state ever a better option than an actual home with one or two parents of any gender?
It will be more interesting to see if any of James’ conservative allies take this advice under consideration in an effort to increase the party’s viability in future election cycles. The GOP will need to break out of their Southern stronghold and expanding the Log Cabin Republicans could be one path to do that. Aside from some of the hard core, older, white social conservatives (who aren’t exactly cheerleaders for civil rights in any sector) is there something specifically antithetical to conservatism about attracting the support of gay voters? Too big of a tent can bring some of its own problems, as Democrats often demonstrate, but too small a tent is a one way ticket to obscurity.