Gay Republicans: A Revisionist Take

Unconfirmed reports suggest that the demand for New York area gay male sex workers was way up during the RNC, as if it brought a lot of closeted folks who live in places where they don't normally have access to such services to town. Funny stuff. I also noted during the convention that an awfully large number of liberal journalists wanted to write about the Log Cabin Republicans since, presumably, everyone thinks it's weird to be a gay member of the party that hates gay people.

Thinking it over, though, I'm not sure gay Republicans are nearly as crazy as I thought as of, say, three days ago. The thing of it is that, in practice, the state of gay rights and (perhaps more importantly) the extent to which gays and lesbians are generally accepted in American society has very little to do with who wins elections. The Bush administration has, thus far, been the high water mark of gay rights in America. The Federal Marriage Amendment would be a major setback, but it won't pass either way. In general, the social forces at work here are far larger than any presidency, and simple cohort-replacement ensures that gay marriage (and the rest of the "gay agenda") will win in the end. By contrast, federal tax policy is enormously impacted by who wins elections.