Rare News Desk
Despite being a contentious issue on the right, the fight for gay rights isn’t going away. Some Republicans, like former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, believe it would be better to leave the party than to accept same sex marriage.
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“I am utterly exasperated with Republicans and the so-called leadership of the Republicans who have abdicated on this issue,” Huckabee recently told a conservative radio show, adding that if these trends continued he would become an independent.
Huckabee would later expand on this point on his Fox program, telling Republicans to “grow a spine.”
“Show a modicum of knowledge about the way we govern ourselves, and lead, follow, or get the heck out of the way.”
Jeff Cook-McCormac of the American Unity Fund, a non-profit that promotes LGBT causes among Republicans candidates for office, recently told Rare that Huckabee’s prediction that the GOP accepting gay marriage would hurt candidates simply isn’t true.
“There are 234 Republican state legislators across the country who have stood up for the freedom to marry…Their biggest fear, and the biggest thing that keeps them from voting for this type of legislation is that they won’t get re-elected. Of that 234, only three of them haven’t been re-elected as a result of their stand” Cook-McCormac said.
“It sends a signal that the water is fine, that they can follow their conscience and live to tell the tale.”
In the years that he has been advocating for this issue, Cook-McCormac has seen the number of Republicans who support gay marriage skyrocket. A March study by the Pew Research Center indicated that more than 60 percent of young Republicans supported the issue, and that number would continue climb.
“There is a clear majority of young Republicans who support the freedom to marry. This is ultimately where the public is going, and most legislators and candidates understand this reality,” Cook-McCormac said, noting that an even larger number of Republicans are choosing to disagree on the issue rather than continuing to fight what many now see as a losing battle.
“It’s certainly changed the tone of the conservation on the center-right.”
Though many Republicans are beginning to embrace gay marriage, Cook-McCormac knows that some politicians and voters won’t be convinced.
“There is a separate question as to whether … government can discriminate against taxpaying citizens [on] a civil contract that applies to everyone else. Many Americans are coming to the conclusion that they have a more traditional view on the issue, that doesn’t conflict [with] the issue that people should be free to marry the people they love,” Cook-McCormac said.
In Governor Huckabee’s case, Cook-McCormac believes he is “proposing a prescription for the Republican Party that would result in demographic disaster.”
“He is failing to realize that even 60 percent of young evangelicals support the freedom to marry… The type of shift we have seen on the marriage issue is not in any way similar to the continuing debates we have seen in America, such as abortion.”
Cook-McCormac believes that instead of stopping “gay and lesbian couples who are looking to conform to the values of the institution,” politicians like Huckabee would to better focusing on poverty and crime, both of which are harmful to families.
Cook-McCormac says what many social conservatives may not realize is that the very legislation they are trying to fight protects the same morals they wish to uphold.
“Every bill that’s passed in this country that advances the freedom to marry has had a strong section on religious liberty that prevents the government from requiring any faith tradition to recognize or perform any marriage services that they don’t want to,” Cook-McCormac said.
“We want people of faith and religious leaders to have that freedom.”
As the nation begins to focus on the 2016 presidential election, Cook-McCormac believes that the issue of gay rights in the United States will be a divisive one.
“In a state like New Hampshire, there is going to be a clear majority of Republicans who support the freedom to marry,” he says, adding that it “is entirely possible that we see a Republican presidential candidate, who is competitive, that supports the full freedom to marry.”
What Cook-McCormac believes is the more likely scenario is a Republican stating that his religious beliefs don’t condone same sex marriage, but that the courts have decided and as Commander-in-chief, he must uphold the courts’ decision.
