The Advocate: Dear Republican Friends... by Christopher Rice [View All]

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Some of my best friends are Republicans. I grew up in the Deep South, so they were hard to avoid. While none of them supports the
Federal Marriage Amendment—not to my face, at least—none of them is willing to break ranks with the Republican Party over it either. They spent the past year reassuring me with promises that the amendment would fail and that their president had put it on the table for just that reason. Before gay marriage bans were passed in 11 states, my Republican friends had a simple message for me: “Don’t panic. We hate those right-wing nut jobs as much as you do.”

Now I have a message for them.

Prove it! Take back your party from the religious extremists who are doing so much to demonize the friends you’re always willing to console. Stop posting maudlin, disingenuous e-mails on blogs about your deep regret over having to sacrifice your gay friends for more important issues. David Brooks, your esteemed representative on The New York Times op-ed page, is claiming that this whole moral values platform thing is bunk anyway. He says no right-wing mandate emerged from this election. Instead, we’re seeing the “big middle.”
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