White Republican evangelicals are outraged as the party has given up and surrendered in its decades-long war on same-sex marriage.
Tony Perkins, leader of the Family Research Council, lambasted her in a scathingblog postand even encouraged people not to donate to the RNC. But the attacks, particularly from the evangelical right, were met with a shrug by the party.
McDaniel’s willingness to brush aside complaints would have been unthinkable not too long ago, Republicans say. The evangelical right remains the most committed part of the party, and the Family Research Council leader is among its most powerful figures. But the GOP has, in recent years, undergone a quiet but consequential evolution: Party leaders still exhibit strong opposition to transgender rights and the top legislative priorities of the LGBTQ community. But on the most prominent battlefield of the past few decades, same-sex marriage, they’ve all but conceded defeat.
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Republicans Fought Against Same-Sex Marriage For Decades, And Then Walked Away
It was less than a decade ago that Barack Obama became the first president in history to publicly support legalized same-sex marriage.
Obama did so after Joe Biden famously went on the record as supporting same-sex marriage,
The Republican reversal on same-sex marriage is evidence that the social culture war issues that they campaign on and use to divide America are nothing more than political props. The GOP spent decades vowing to protect the “sanctity of marriage,” only to bail when the national politics shifted.
The culture war is nothing but a wedge that Republicans attempt to weaponize to motivate their base to win elections, and their quiet surrender on gay marriage is an omen of their consistent defeat in America’s culture wars.
Jason is the managing editor. He is also a White House Press Pool and a Congressional correspondent for PoliticusUSA. Jason has a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science. His graduate work focused on public policy, with a specialization in social reform movements.
Awards and Professional Memberships
Member of the Society of Professional Journalists and The American Political Science Association
