{"id":2446,"date":"2013-03-18T18:01:20","date_gmt":"2013-03-18T22:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/?p=2446"},"modified":"2013-03-18T18:12:56","modified_gmt":"2013-03-18T22:12:56","slug":"can-the-issue-of-gay-rights-rip-the-republican-party-apart","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/2013\/03\/18\/can-the-issue-of-gay-rights-rip-the-republican-party-apart\/","title":{"rendered":"Can the issue of gay rights rip the Republican party apart?"},"content":{"rendered":"

I never thought I would ask this question. But the data are stunning<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Let’s get it from another source<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u00a0\u201cSignificant opposition to the freedom to marry is increasingly isolated within narrow demographic groups while a much broader and more diverse majority are ready to let same-sex couples marry,\u201d wrote Joel Benenson<\/a>, who led President Obama\u2019s polling operation in 2008 and 2012, and Jan van Lohuizen<\/a>, who did the same job for former presid<\/p>\n

The pollsters found that opposition centered primarily in a few demographic groups.<\/p>\n

Voters age 65 and older expressed opposition to allowing such unions in their states by a 21-point margin, with 37\u00a0percent supporting them and 58\u00a0percent opposing. Those younger than 65 favored them by eight points, 52\u00a0percent to 44\u00a0percent.<\/p>\n

The disparity was even greater among religious groups, broken down along racial lines. White evangelical Christians opposed same-sex marriage by nearly 3 to\u00a01. But every non-evangelical group \u2014 other white Protestants, white Catholics, Hispanic Catholics, African American non-evangelicals and Jewish voters \u2014 expressed support for such unions by double-digit margins.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Of course, there are those\u00a0<\/a> Republicans who are concerned about this, and think their party needs to correct course:<\/p>\n

Jennifer Rubin, the conservative Washington Post<\/em> blogger, was among those speaking most strongly about how the Republican Party needs to adjust course on gay couples’ marriage rights if it wants to survive.<\/p>\n

“In 10 years, I don’t know if there will be a Republican Party,” Rubin said. “There’s nothing that says that we have to be around. But there is a lot of evidence, historically, that the progress in America has been all in one direction: tolerance, inclusion, barriers fall. You don’t go backwards.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

But\u00a0the bigots won’t be giving up <\/a>without a fight either.<\/p>\n

However, David Lane, who organizes conservative Christians nationwide, said the more than 65\u00a0million Americans who identify themselves as evangelicals are feeling increasingly alienated from electoral politics.<\/p>\n

If GOP leaders embrace same-sex marriage, he predicted, \u201cit will lead quickly to the collapse of the Republican Party,\u201d causing a core constituency to leave for a third party or to renounce politics.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And he is not the first to tell us that.<\/p>\n

\u00a0\"\"<\/p>\n

In other words, the two sides are pulling at opposite directions, and both are warning that unless they have their way, the party is doomed.<\/p>\n

Pass the popcorn!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I never thought I would ask this question. But the data are stunning.   Let’s get it from another source:…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2446","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2446"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2446\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2446"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2446"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/nocrossnocrescent\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2446"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}