On gay rights, CPAC reveals brewing tension within Republican Party

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/politicsnow/la-pn-gay-issues-cpac-republican-tension-20140308,0,5843671.story#axzz2vQ7QF6pu

By Daniel Rothberg

March 8, 2014, 3:45 p.m.

OXON HILL, Md. — For an event remembered by its big statements — rabble-rousing speeches and students clad in American-flag shorts — this year’s Conservative Political Action Conference was nearly silent on same-sex marriage and other such issues.

But the low-key treatment spoke loudly about a growing tension between conservatives who want to raise the issue — most of them opposed to gay rights — and those who want to focus on other issues. In a bit of irony, a subject once effectively used by some Republicans against Democrats has now become something of a wedge issue within the Republican Party.

Former Sen. Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania spoke for those who want to highlight the issue, criticizing Republican leaders who claim they “have to win” by sacrificing traditional positions on social issues.

“They actually mean we have to lose,” Santorum said. “We have to lose those currently unfashionable stances on cultural and limited-government issues.”

FULL story at link.

[markpkessinger]

1. It is actually the Republicans "who want to focus on other things" that are the bigger problem . . .

Note that these Republicans simply want the issue to go away, not that they want to support gay rights. These folks -- and I know the type well -- are in complete and total denial over the extent to which religious extremists now run the GOP show. Their reason for wanting to "focus on other things" is, as mush as anything, the fact that they don't want the public to see how radically extreme the controlling faction of their party has become. But at the same time, they don't have the cojones to stand up to them. But their insistance on continuing their long=-running, collective Ostrich impersonation is precisely the thing that enables the continued dominance of religious extremists.