Republicans are quietly letting go of their hopes for a gay marriage ban , and shifting their focus to economic issues, states a report from Politico . With support for gay marriage at it’s highest ever, it is understandable that the GOP party is quietly turning their attention from the subject, which has been a hot-button issue for years.
This change has been one of the fastest for the Republican party, who just a few years ago, was trying to put a gay marriage ban in the Constitution. Instead, a few GOP members have begun to hold fundraisers for the GOP group Log Cabin Republicans.
The group’s leader is very excited about the shift, and noted that, “Twenty years ago they would have thrown us under the bus.”
Representative Jack Kingston (R-Ga.) said of the shift that:
“In one decade, what’s shocking on TV is accepted as commonplace in the other…it’s the same with sexual mores all over that if you look at campuses and universities, they have a lot of gay pride clubs and so there has been a deliberate and effective outreach to the younger generation about being more accepting of same-sex relationships.”
Allen West, Representative for Florida, agreed, and elaborated that the economy, at this point, is a much more concerning issue. He stated:
“I personally have deep convictions about my children having a financially stable country that they can live in…I want my daughters to have the opportunities that I had, and that’s what concerns me. That’s what keeps me up awake at night, not worrying about who’s sleeping with who.”
Even radical conservatives, like Representative Ted Poe (R-Texas) recently attended a Log Cabin Republican meeting in Houston. His office wrote that Poe’s “views on same-sex marriage have not changed, however, he found that there were plenty of things they did agree on and he really enjoyed listening to what they had to say.”