Former McCain Campaign Chief and 2009 Log Cabin Republicans National Convention speaker Steve Schmidt continued his argument that Republicans and conservatives should pick up the banner of supporting gay marriage. In an interview with the Huffington Post, Schmidt said:

There is a strong conservative case to be made in favor of gay marriage. Marriage is an institution that strengthens and stabilizes society. It is an institution that has the capacity to bring profound joy and happiness to people and it is a matter of equality and keeping faith of one of the charters of the nation, the right to live your life.

 More and more conservatives are saying that opposition to gay marriage would not be a litmus test for membership in the GOP. And more conservatives are making the case that no more do you want big government conservatives in the bedroom than big government liberals telling you how to live your life.

This echoes his message to Log Cabin Republicans in April, 2009, where he said:

I, and I believe most people, believe you are born with your sexuality. It is not a choice. It should offend us as Republicans and Americans when gays are denigrated as degenerates or un-American or undeserving of the government’s protection of their rights. And the Republican Party should give voice to genuine outrage when anyone belittles the humanity of another person. It is offensive in the extreme to the values of this nation, and we should be in the forefront of rejecting such truly un-American prejudice. Moreover, if you believe we are born with our sexual orientation, it is hard to deny the inequality under the law that exists when people of one sexual orientation are allowed to marry and people of another are not.

Even though a majority of Republicans remain opposed to it, we must respect dissent on the subject within the party and encourage debate over it, and should not reject out of hand and on specious grounds the question that the party might be in the wrong on the question. We should publicly affirm that gays are entitled to the same respect and protections we accord heterosexuals to be secure from discrimination in their employment and the places they choose to live; to enter into contractual relationships with another person that grant them the same benefits and privileges allowed married couples, such as tax advantages accorded married couples or the responsibilities to make end of life decisions for one another.

Schmidt will be joining former Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, Mary Cheney, Ambassador and Nicole Wallace, former Congressman Michael Huffington, former Governor Christine Todd Whitman, former Governor Bill Weld, former FEC Chairman Michael Toner, Fox News Contributor Margaret Hoover and many more at a fundraiser to benefit the American Foundation for Equal Rights, the organization that is seeking to overturn California’s Proposition 8. 

Posted: September 1st, 2010 under GOP Progress, In Focus, In the News.
Comments: 1

Log Cabin Republicans ally and former United Nations Ambassador John Bolton is the latest in a series of Bush Administration alumni to support the repeal of the failed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy.

In an interview with the Daily Caller about a potential 2012 Presidential run, Bolton specifically addressed the subject of allowing gay and lesbian servicemembers to serve openly:

Asked about the president’s plan to repeal ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,’ Bolton said he is generally in favor of allowing anyone who wants to serve their country in the military to do so.

“I don’t have any trouble with that [repealing ‘Don’t Ask, ‘Don’t Tell] assuming it is done in a way that is respectful of the people in the military who have great difficulty with it,” he said. “I don’t think there is any good answer to the question why shouldn’t gays and lesbians who want to serve their country be allowed to do it.”

Read more of Bolton’s interview in the Daily Caller.

Posted: September 1st, 2010 under From the Right, GOP Heroes, In Focus, Issues in Focus.
Comments: 1

While many pundits were expecting Republicans would use Judge Vaughn Walker’s recent ruling as a means for mobilizing voters around socially conservative messaging. Instead party leaders are keeping the focus on economic issues.

In an interview with the New York Times, while at the RNC Summer Meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, California Republican Party Chairman Ron Nehring remarked that “This election needs to revolve around five issues: taxes, spending, the economy, jobs and debt.” This opinion was echoed by Indiana Republican Party Chairman went further, in arguing that focusing on social issues might play in Democrat’s favor, saying “Can we declare a truce on some of the other issues unrelated to the economy?”

The voice is matched by messaging coming from the Republican National Committee. In an interview with Politico, RNC Politcal Director Gentry Collins remarked that “Every indicator that I have … generally speaking is that economic growth and job creation are the tandem issues that will be the principal drivers of voter decision at polls. What I’m encouraging candidates to do is go out and run on an economic platform, a jobs platform.”

Larry Sabato, also in Politico, put it simply: “A modern party does not want a campaign that’s built around a crusade on gay rights. … it won’t work, for one thing, and for another, it’s so controversial that it would obscure the nonpartisan appeal of the economic issue.” He added, “I don’t think that moderates and independents get very excited about this.”

Dan Balz, in the Washington Post notes that:

At another time, the ruling overturning California’s ban on same-sex marriages might have been the political equivalent of an earthquake. Instead, the relatively restrained response underscores both the singular economic focus of this year’s elections and the shifting politics of one of the country’s major social issues.

Neither Democrats nor Republicans appear eager to try to turn the California decision into a November rallying cry. Many Democrats who otherwise strongly support gay rights are still reluctant to advocate for same-sex marriages, President Obama being the most prominent example. Many Republicans believe their conservative base is already well motivated. For now, they prefer to stay away from the kind of wedge-issue politics that were once a hallmark of their campaigns.

The ruling even drew only tepid statements from California’s top two Republican nominees, Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, both former backers of Proposition 8. Commenting on the ruling as a part of Fiorina’s race in The Hill, RNC spokesman Brian Walsh noted that social issues ”will be overshadowed by the No. 1 issue on the minds of voters, which is the direction of the California economy.”

Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper issued the following statement on the lack of Republican response to the Proposition 8 ruling:

The Republican National Committee and the respective campaign committees (NRSC and NRCC) are aggressively seeking coalitions within the broader conservative community and are consistently maintaining a general drum beat of messaging on core conservative principles of individual liberty, individual responsibility, free market economy, tax reform, strong national defense and a confident foreign policy.  There is also targeted messaging in certain races focusing on the negative impact of Obama’s so called economic stimulus, state challenges to health care reform, and the need to address federal border protection and immigration reform.

What is noticeably absent from the recent political debate are divisive attacks on gay and lesbian citizens.  To gain a majority in 2010, the party needs to maintain our base while recouping the voters we lost in the 2008 cycle.  Having our teeth kicked in during the 2008 election helped many Republicans realize identity politics had a diminishing return.  Moving forward, the Republicans can win by offering alternatives to the lack luster and big government policies of the Democrats.  Better for fellow Republicans to engage voters on common themes.  Everyone is concerned about the economy and everyone would like to see market driven job growth.

 Further, any attempts at discounting Judge Vaughn Walker’s recent ruling on Proposition 8 could be interpreted as a defense of inequality and discrimination as well as advocating for denying due process and equal protection for all Americans.  There is no need for Republican candidates to run a campaign with direct or implied messaging against marriage equality.

Log Cabin Republicans remains committed to reaching out and working to create a more inclusive party, to ensure that government returns to its core values of individual liberty, individual accountability, smaller government, an unappologetic foreign policy and free market economies.

Posted: August 9th, 2010 under In Focus, In the States.
Comments: 2

Log Cabin Republicans ally Ric Grenell opines in the Huffington Post about a dirty little secret, Republicans are actually paving the way in the fight for marriage equality:

Immediately after the decision that California’s 2008 ballot initiative Proposition 8 was unconstitutional, the left started their partisan claims that electing liberal judges and Democratic politicians were the only sure ways to guarantee equal rights for gays and lesbians. The partisan group Equality California quickly warned Californians that they must elect Jerry Brown and San Francisco Attorney General Candidate Kamala Harris if they wanted greater equality. One by One, NPR hosts and MSNBC personalities speculated that the Republicans would surely use the ruling as a wedge issue in November leading viewers and listeners to believe the issue splits down partisan lines. And gay groups trumpeted congratulatory claims from Democrats and warnings from some Republicans that the issue was not settled yet.

But what you didn’t hear from the political left and mainstream media is that U.S. District Chief Judge Vaughn R. Walker was appointed by a Republican president and that the lawyer, former Solicitor General Ted Olson, who successfully argued the case on behalf of gays and lesbians, is a Republican.

If U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi had had her way, Vaughn Walker would never have been a judge at all. In 1987, President Ronald Reagan nominated Walker to the federal bench. Pelosi mounted an aggressive campaign against him and led two dozen other Democrats to oppose his nomination over what they called his “insensitivity” to gays and the poor. The hectoring liberal mob won and Walker’s nomination stalled in the Senate Judiciary Committee. Pelosi had successfully maligned Walker, who happens to be gay, labeling him a homophobe. Luckily, Walker was nominated again by President George H.W. Bush in early 1989 and subsequently confirmed to the federal bench.

…

But the 2008 decision by California voters to pass Proposition 8 and deny marriage to gays and lesbians should have been a warning sign. California voters overwhelmingly voted for both Barack Obama and Prop 8. At best, this vote means California Democrats are ambivalent about gay marriage. So why do Democratic activists and their media allies continue to define the issue as a partisan divide? The issue is not as partisan as they would like you to believe.

Immediately following the ruling from Walker, Fox News conducted an online and unscientific poll asking people to vote whether or not they believed the Judge had made the right decision. With more than 225,000 votes, 63% of the respondents said “Yes, Prop 8 violates the Constitution.” And 32% said “No, Marriage is an institution between a man and a woman.”

Some people think the issue is merely generational and that as young people mature the opposition to gay marriage will dissipate. But Dick Cheney and Laura Bush are both seasoned Republicans who support gay marriage. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, both Democrats with enormous support from young people, are opposed to it. This week’s ruling by a Republican-appointed judge shows that the current stereotypes promulgated by gay civil rights leaders, their Democratic allies and the media are outdated and part of the reason the issue is destined to stay a political wedge.

Read the rest of Grenell’s column at the Huffington Post.

Posted: August 6th, 2010 under From the Right, In Focus, In the News, In the States.
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Log Cabin Republicans ally Ric Grenell opines in Politico about the recent ruling by Judge Vaughn Walker, striking down Proposition 8’s ban on same-sex marriage.

The Democrats have done nothing to give equal rights to gays and lesbians in the 18 months they have controlled the Senate, the House and the White House – despite promising they would. They have worked hard to keep the issue as a partisan political issue whereby they can decry Republicans lack of support while doing nothing themselves. The simple fact is that a Republican group brought the lawsuit to overturn Prop 8, it was argued as unconstitutional by Republican Ted Olson and was ruled unconstitutional by a Republican-appointed judge. And let’s not forget that President Obama and Hillary Clinton is against gay marriage and Dick Cheney and Laura Bush are for it.

Read more at Politco.

Posted: August 6th, 2010 under From the Right, In Focus, In the News, In the States.
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While appearing on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Fox News Host and syndicated columnist Bill O’Reilly took on a usual foe in President Obama, this time taking the President to task for the failed ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy and the discharge of Lt. Dan Choi.

“President Obama has the power to stop this ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ business. Just sign an executive order. So I don’t know why it’s taking so long….It’s not fair. We should stop this nonsense,” said O’Reily of the policy which prohibits open service by gay men and lesbians in America’s armed forces.

O’Reilly joins many conservative leaders who have come out against the policy, including former Vice President Dick Cheney, former Defense Secretary Bill Cohen, General David Petraeus, former Secretary of State Colin Powell, and General John Shalikashvilli, also a former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Posted: July 29th, 2010 under From the Right, In Focus, In the News.
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A Daily Caller piece by Log Cabin ally Ric Grenell published July 28, 2010

U.S. Ambassador to the UN Susan Rice has been on the job for 18 months now, but she doesn’t have much to show for it.  Her record of accomplishments and performance on behalf of the American people is embarrassing.  While Rice has been active in the social scene of Washington and The White House, a study released by the uber-serious non-profit group Security Council Report suggests that the past year has been the most inactive Security Council since 1991.  Rice missed crucial negotiations on Iran’s continued enrichment of uranium, she failed to speak out when Iran was elected to the Commission on the Status of Women and three other UN Committees, she failed to call-out Libya when they were elected to the UN’s Human Rights Council, she recently delivered an Iran sanctions resolution with the least support Iran resolutions have ever had and she called her one and only press conference with the UN Secretary General on the issue of texting while driving.  For an administration that promised to utilize the UN and improve our reputation around the world, its dinner party circuit strategy isn’t making America more secure.

Much of the blame for the weakness belongs to Rice and her habitual silence.  Rice has not conducted the hard negotiations nor done the sometimes unpopular work of engaging the UN on the United States’ priority issues.  When Rice does attend UN negotiations, she is all too willing to avoid confrontation.  While other foreign Ambassadors speak fondly of Rice and the Obama Administration’s easy ways, they have been weak negotiators for the American people.

This lack of American leadership at the UN has resulted in the general Security Council inactivity spotlighted in the study by the Columbia University-affiliated group – Security Council Report.

The Report says:

“In 2009 the total number of Council decisions (resolutions and presidential statements) decreased by 26 percent from 2008. The number dropped from 113 to 83, the lowest level since 1991.

Resolutions dropped from 65 to 48 and presidential statements from 48 to 35.

This significant trend is also mirrored in a matching reduction in formal Council activity.  The number of formal Council meetings decreased by 20 percent, from 243 to 194.

The number of press statements, which is one indicator of Council decision making at the informal level, also decreased by 23 percent, from 47 to 36.”

While Rice launched her tenure at the UN with a glamour spread in Vogue Magazine by famed photographer Annie Leibovitz showing her kicking back in an empty Security Council Chamber, she seems to not enjoy the Chamber when it’s full of diplomats.  During the Haiti crisis, Rice was not only absent from the Security Council vote to expand the UN’s peacekeeping operation, but she also failed to call an emergency meeting in the immediate aftermath to request more help.  In fact, 7 days after the Haiti earthquake left tens of thousands of people in the streets without food or shelter, it was UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon that came to the Security Council to request more troops – the American Ambassador hadn’t bothered.

This article was first published in the Harvard Republian Alumni Network Journal.

Posted: July 28th, 2010 under From the Right, In Focus, In the World.
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Associated Press July 23, 2010

“RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Lawyers for a Republican gay rights organization will ask a judge for an injunction to halt the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy during their closing arguments in a federal trial challenging the law.

Lawyers for the Log Cabin Republicans say they will ask U.S. District Court Judge Virginia A. Phillips on Friday to declare the law unconstitutional.

The case is unique in that it is not based on an individual’s complaint but rather is a broad, sweeping attack on the policy. It is the biggest legal test of the law in recent years.

The case has put the Obama administration in the awkward position of defending a policy the president wants repealed. Government attorneys have argued throughout the two-week trial that Congress should decide on the policy — not a federal judge.

They presented only the policy’s legislative history in their defense.

The Log Cabin Republicans’ witnesses included former officers discharged under the policy and other experts who presented studies of how openly gay troops do not affect unit cohesion or military readiness, as proponents of the law have argued. The group’s attorneys also submitted President Barack Obama’s remarks that the “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy weakens national security.

The plaintiff’s lead lawyer, Dan Woods, argued the policy violates the rights of gay military members to free speech, due process and open association.

“Don’t ask, don’t tell” prohibits the military from asking about the sexual orientation of service members but requires discharge of those who acknowledge being gay or are discovered to be engaging in homosexual activity, even in the privacy of their own homes off base.

The group says more than 13,500 service members have been fired under the law since 1994. The 19,000-member Log Cabin Republicans include current and former military members.

Phillips is expected to issue her verdict in writing. Lawyers say she could take weeks or longer to make her decision.

Legal experts say she may hold off to see if Congress is going to repeal it.

The U.S. House voted May 27 to repeal the policy, and the Senate is expected to take up the issue this summer.

In deciding to hear the challenge, Phillips said the “possibility that action by the legislative and executive branches will moot this case is sufficiently remote.”

Woods, a Los Angeles attorney from the firm White & Case, said if Phillips rules in their favor and the government appeals, he will ask her to suspend the policy until the case is decided.”

Posted: July 23rd, 2010 under In Focus, In the News, Issues in Focus, Log Cabin In Focus.
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‘DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL’ IS A THREAT TO THE CONSTITUTION AND NATIONAL SECURITY.

The following quotes are extracted from Log Cabin Republicans Executive Director R. Clarke Cooper’s  Op-Ed on the DADT policy.

“Recent headlines lead many in the gay community to believe the fight to repeal DADT is over, but the policy and discharges remain fully in force.”

“As a veteran of the Iraq campaign and a current Army reserve officer, I can attest that DADT is a hindrance to servicemember integrity, readiness and security, and is a waste of tax dollars.”

“Further, striking the DADT policy and implementing repeal will be a force multiplier for the retention and expansion of much-needed personnel and resources to fulfill the expeditionary campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as other training and peace-keeping missions around the globe.”

Read the entire Op-Ed at Metro Weekly

Posted: July 22nd, 2010 under In Focus, In the News, Issues in Focus, Log Cabin In Focus.
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Yesterday in Riverside California, the head of Servicemembers United Alexander Nicholson, testified in the Log Cabin Republicans lawsuit challenging the ‘Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell’ policy.

Nicholson is the founder and Executive Director of the nation’s largest organization of gay and lesbian troops and veterans. He was one of the lead witnesses in the trial in federal court. Through testimony and facts, Log Cabin hopes to get DADT declared unconstitutional by the federal judge.

“I am especially honored to be the lead veteran witness in this case and to have the opportunity to represent all gay and lesbian troops and veterans on the witness stand today at this very important and historic trial,” said Nicholson, who was discharged under DADT.

“This unnecessary and bigoted law has caused untold harm to each and every person who has served under it, and that, in turn, has harmed the quality and readiness of our armed forces,” he said.

Read full testimony from the trial on Log Cabin Republicans’s website here.

Posted: July 21st, 2010 under In Focus, In the News, Issues in Focus, Log Cabin In Focus.
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