Oxymorons and Ideology

While I wanted to start this blog off with a post examining Americans' weird obsession with the "Founding Fathers", I was sidetracked today by a confluence of news and opinion pieces that got the gears in my head turning. The issue in question: gay Republicans. I know, I know: it's easy to get a good laugh out of that phrase, as is. However, I think the existence of gay Republican organizations highlights some big issues in our contemporary politics .

As you might know, the Conservative Political Action Conference is taking place in Washington this week. Check out their website to find out more, but basically it is a yearly get-together thrown by the American Conservative Union to discuss all the exciting regressive developments in and future direction for American conservatism. Note, this is not a Republican organization per se, but definitely is partly composed of and seeks to influence the GOP. 

Anyway, I stumbled across this blog post linked to a CNN report about GOProud, a gay Republican pressure group that wants to promote gay rights via some strategy of dis-empowering the Federal government in favor of each state making decisions on gay marriage and other issues. Because, as everyone knows, the states tend to not make very gay friendly laws when left to their own devices.

Now, if you're gay and a Republican, fine. I accept that there are greedy irrational gay people just as there are greedy irrational straight people. (I'm simplifying GOP ideals, here.) However, specifically mobilizing on the basis of your sexuality signals a concern for LGBT specific issues and interests. If the GOP were true to its more classical liberal, small government roots, I could almost understand mobilizing as "gay Republicans". It is not. At best, the GOP is indifferent to the specific concerns and interests of LGBT people and, at worst, is openly hostile to them. The party is for small government in welfare and public service provision, but for large intrusive government in almost every other respect, including butting in (no pun!) to the sexual and family lives of the citizenry. By going along with the GOP, even as it fights against the interests of LGBT people, you simply consent to and aid their narrative.

Earlier today I read a piece (on an unrelated issue) appearing in the Guardian by Jessica Asato, a British Labour party activist and think-tank director. This line struck me:

We join single issue groups because it's easier than having to think about the complexities of modern life and the politics that should result.

Organizing as "gay Republicans" signals a refusal to recognize that the overall 'politics' of the GOP is inherently hostile to historically disempowered groups. This sort of narrow single-issue thinking isn't just a gay republican problem, but is rife in our politics today. It is easier to think only about the issues that affect us, or that we care about specifically, than to formulate a framework of values and beliefs that guides our response to the demands of democratic social and political life. The name for this framework is ideology, a dirty word in today's discourse. However, without some form of ideology to structure our politics, all we are left with is a vague "America-first centrism" (itself an ideology). 

The parties clearly have ideological differences, but with Blue Dog Democrats and GOProud Republicans running around clucking about their pet peeves, the lines are definitely blurred. Instead, politicians and parties vacillate, responding to each "issue" as though it were a stand-alone phenomenon. Without a clear set of political and social beliefs and values to appeal to, the interests of narrow pressure groups and constituencies, rather than the good of all, tends to win out. Politicians and other organizations claim to "want what is best for America", without defining a vision of how we would get there, or what it would look like when we did.