Chris Matthews Looks At Growing Gay Marriage Support Within The GOP
Last night Chris Matthews invited Joe Solomonese of the Human Rights Campaign and R. Clarke Cooper of the Log Cabin Republicans to discuss what Matthews is describing as a movement by the Conservative Elite to make the “Republican Case for Gay Marriage.”
Among these elite are Ken Mehlman, Steve Schmidt, Meghan McCain, Ben Ginsberg, and Ted Olsen — all GOP heavy-hitters who have made the case that the party should embrace gay marriage as a stabilizing, family-building, freedom-affirming and conservative cause.
Cooper then tries to make the case that the movement isn’t just for elites, citing the fact that Log Cabin Republicans make the same small political donations as the rest of the GOP. He argues this (somehow) proves that there’s a large grassroots movement to get the party to stop fighting the issue. This point is later undercut when Cooper later tries to portray LCRs as influential high-donors, five minutes later.
Solomonese offers up a more practical view of the movement, describing the party as split between three different populations: 1) a new group of moderate Republicans who support gay marriage, 2) far right Republicans standing in the way and 3) Tea Party Republicans who have taken special care not to avoid the issue.
Matthews takes some issue with Solomonese’s characterizing of the third group. Up until recently, the Tea Party had avoided religious issues. But Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin successfully pulled a major shift with the Restoring Honor Rally, which was, according to Beck, entirely about God. Says Matthews:
The Christian Right, under the banner of Palin and Beck are trying to take that party from its secular roots […] and in an incredibly un-American way turning a political party into a religious institution. I don’t think it’s going to help marriage equality.
Cooper again has the unenviable task of trying to portray the GOP’s pro-gay-marriage movement as grassroots and tries to counter Matthews’ argument by saying Beck is “fine” with marriage equality, ignoring the fact that almost certainly the majority of the attendees at the rally were not.
Solomonese makes the more believable point that, regardless of what he actually believes, Beck could be recognizing that if his movement wants to grow, it’s not going to do so by shutting out what is fast becoming a historical inevitability.
Click here to watch the segment from MSNBC’s Hardball:
