Same-Sex Marriage and the GOP: A Personal Observation

I hope you’ll forgive me a personal note here.  My father is gay.  I love and respect my father and have little patience for homophobia.

In that connection, I’ve been at the same time amused and horrified to watch this story develop over the last month or so.  A few weeks back, Pat Brady, Chair of the Illinois GOP spoke out in favor of same-sex marriage and encouraged his party to reject the bigotry and discrimination that their past positions on the issue have represented.  (His motives were laced with practical partisan considerations, too, but he does wear that hat.  Still, a basically forward-looking position, it seems to me.)

Of course, every imperfect human being – which is to say, every one of us – has been tempted by darker impulses.  Scapegoating and demonization are as old as humanity itself.  And it seems to me that folks who are tempted by those demons around this issue should have taken Mr Brady’s encouragement as a reminder to be ashamed of shameful impulses and put them away.

There shouldn’t have been an issue here.

And yet, what we have had instead is a full-throated outcry against Mr Brady, and an attempt by an apparently-large segment of that party to remove him from his post.

Which leads me to ask (again), why are decent people willing to associate themselves with the GOP?  What weight of ugliness and intolerance will it take to get decent people everywhere to be done with them?