Scapegoats

Since the talk is that George W. Bush was reelected based strongly on his appeal to voters concerned about "moral" issues, Democrats are trying to ascertain whether the influx of gay marriages last year hurt the chances of putting their man in office. What good is such second-guessing? I have to say I side with Martin Luther King, who said, "There's never a good time for civil rights movements," as well as Geoffrey Kors, who recently said, "To scapegoat people for having the audacity to ask for equality is outrageous."

Kors, executive director of Equality California, the state's largest gay rights lobbying group, astutely points out that Democrats failed to successfully advance their own set of values to challenge the religious-extremist set.

"There was never any attempt to counter the minority, right-wing religious morality that Bush was preaching with morality about equality and being in a country that welcomes and embraces diversity and is based on freedom of religion and freedom of beliefs," Kors told the Associated Press.

Many gay advocates point out that fundamentalists were motivated by Bush's stands on other issues besides gay rights — such as abortion and abstinence-only sex education — and to square the election defeat on the gay issue is simply bad logic.

In fact, voters in several states Bush won, including Idaho and North Carolina, elected the first openly gay candidates to their state Legislatures. In Oregon, where an amendment banning gay marriage was passed, voters sent an openly gay judge to the Oregon Supreme Court.

Equality California reports that new exit polls reveal that a new number of Americans (60 percent) now support marriage or civil unions for same-sex couples.

I'm all for Democrats doing some rethinking. But maybe success lies in not trying to be more like Republicans but instead in starting to fully embrace their own ideals.

Read more here --> Gay Advocates Examine Role in Election
Another excellent article here -->