I hope you’ll forgive me a personal note here. \u00a0My father is gay. \u00a0I love and respect my father and have little patience for homophobia.<\/p>\n
In that connection, I’ve been at the same time amused and horrified to watch this story develop over the last month or so. \u00a0A few weeks back, Pat Brady, Chair of the Illinois GOP\u00a0spoke out in favor of same-sex marriage<\/a>\u00a0and encouraged his party to reject the bigotry and discrimination that their past positions on the issue have represented. \u00a0(His motives were laced with practical partisan considerations, too, but he does wear that hat. \u00a0Still, a basically forward-looking position, it seems to me.)<\/p>\n Of course, every imperfect human being – which is to say, every one of us – has been tempted by darker impulses. \u00a0Scapegoating and demonization are as old as humanity itself. \u00a0And 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.<\/p>\n There shouldn’t have been an issue here.<\/p>\n And yet, what we have had instead is a\u00a0full-throated outcry against Mr Brady<\/a>, and an attempt by an apparently-large segment of that party to\u00a0remove him from his post<\/a>.<\/p>\n Which leads me to ask (again), why are decent people willing to associate themselves with the GOP? \u00a0What weight of ugliness and intolerance will it take to get decent people everywhere to be done with them?<\/p>\n