In a recent Wall Street Journal article, George Tisei, a gay man and leading candidate who is running for Congress in Massachusetts, notified the Republican Party recently that it needs to embrace “all freedoms,” including the freedom to marry someone of the same sex. He sees it as a party that is “stuck in the 19th century,” clearly over its social positions. Of course, there are other Republican leaders and strategists who warn that if the GOP social conservatives don’t get over social issues, then the party is doomed since it is out of step with young people. Well here is my message to Richard Tisei: we are accepting of you, so if you’re not accepting of us then why don’t you just change your party affiliation to Democrat. You are correct that we are the party of expanding civil rights, but civil rights aren’t just made up out of whole cloth. Same-sex marriage is not a civil right, just as polygamy is not a civil right. So if you’re going to change the traditional definition of marriage then you will have to change it to any and whatever arrangements consenting adults decide is their “right.” So have you counted the cost of your proposal? If traditional marriage is discriminatory, then same-sex marriage is too.
The Republican Party is not made up of a group of people who all think alike, and there is indeed room in the party for people to disagree on social issues such as same-sex marriage and abortion. But what Tisei is saying is that the party must change for him in order for him to accept us. Apparently he doesn’t feel there is room for debate and disagreement within the party, so he must remake the party in the image that he sees fit. I hardly see the tolerance in making such a demand. The idea of being a Republican is far more than being fiscally conservative. The Republican Party stands for a certain set of values and principles, such as the belief in a creator that establishes and grounds morality, whose natural laws are reflected in our Constitution. So when people such as Tisei come to the party and says it needs to change its core principles, then what will be left of the party when people such as him are done remaking it into something it was never designed to be? Should the party change its principles to appeal to young people, or should it be able to persuasively and winsomely woo them with those principles?
The problem with the Republicans such as Tisei is that they may know how to sell fiscal responsibility but they can’t sell or don’t care about the party’s core principles, which is why I question why he or them are even Republican. Perhaps he just wants to run the social conservatives out of the party and what will he have then? The Republicans would lose every election because social conservatives make up somewhere between 30-40% of Republican voters. Perhaps he could get rid of us and pull some Democrats into the Republican Party, but there is a fat chance of that happening any time soon. So what I would suggest Tisei do is to sell the party on its diversity. Yes, diversity. That’s one thing the Democratic Party is always carping about and we know their diversity may be in the skin color of their voters but it is not in diversity of thought. Within the Republican set of principles, there is great diversity in thought and if these Republicans could just sell our best points instead of complaining about our very strength then perhaps they could woo more independents and even some Democrats to our side.
As I have said numerous times, the Republican Party has no vision. It doesn’t know how to talk to people and it doesn’t know how to inspire people. It doesn’t know how to appeal to both the hearts and minds of the people. And that indeed is its problem. So people such as Tisei, instead of getting excited about our principles and our diversity and presenting a vision of hope and opportunity to the American people, they just gripe about the fact that we’re not more like Democrats. So I have no idea why he is a Republican and why he is even running as a Republican. It doesn’t appear he shares its ideals except for the fiscal ones, so why does he bother? I don’t care one wit that he is gay because if he believes in God that is between him and God. But just as he is asking the Republican Party to change for him, perhaps he expects God to think like he does also. Well I don’t ask the party to change for me, and I won’t ask God to change for me either. I accept the Republican Party for its ideals, and I accept the moral principles that God has laid down in the natural law and in Scripture. If Tisei is leading a movement to remove me and other social conservatives, then ’s fine because I’m used to being in the minority.
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