Guest Commentary: Voters may flee GOP over gay rights

Preston Dickey, left, of One Colorado and Daniel Gonzales celebrate after the Colorado House voted 39-26 to allow gay couples to form civil unions despite protests from Republicans that the issue will wind up in court because it doesn't offer religious exemptions. (Craig F. Walker, The Denver Post)

I'm often embarrassed to admit that I'm a Republican. It's sad to say, but for young people like me, "Republican" has become a four-letter word. Look no further than the debate and passage of same-sex civil unions in the Colorado legislature.

Despite widespread support among all voters, and despite the fact that a majority of Republicans support civil unions for gay couples, lawmakers in the Colorado GOP ? with a single brave exception in the Senate and just two in the House ? steadfastly opposed the measure, stubbornly choosing to remain on the wrong side of history.

Which brings me to the chief reason why many in my generation can't manage to pull the lever for a Republican: gay rights.

When I talk to people my age, read through their Facebook statuses, or look at any poll, it becomes readily apparent that young people of all political stripes ? Democrats, Republicans, independents, apathetics ? usually agree on one thing: Gay couples should have the right to marry. They talk about it, write about it, argue for it and, most important, vote based on it.

Don't take my word for it. Poll after poll finds that young people are extremely supportive of gay rights. A recent Gallup survey found that 73 percent of those 18 to 29 favor same-sex marriage. Support holds fairly strong among young Republicans, with a just-released poll finding that the majority of millennial Republicans back same-sex marriage. Just as significantly, healthy majorities of young independents ? i.e. swing voters, and potential Republicans ? also support same-sex marriage.

If the Republican Party maintains its position against gay marriage, it will also maintain a brand that suggests it is rigid, intolerant, even bigoted. I don't believe that those words represent Republican values; that's why the party must embrace same-sex marriage, for both moral and practical reasons.

Instead, marriage-equality opponents are digging in their heals and digging a grave for the GOP. The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) is sounding the anti-equality alarm, opposing civil unions in Colorado, and threatening to spend $500,000 to unseat any Republican legislator in the country who dares vote for same-sex marriage.

NOM trumpets the fact that in New York, three of four Republican senators who voted for gay marriage are no longer in office. (One retired, one lost a primary, and the other lost a general election.) What the organization ostentatiously omits is the fact that two of those three outgoing Republicans were replaced by gay-marriage-supporting Democrats. Congratulations, NOM. If the goal was to replace pro-gay Republicans with pro-gay Democrats, then mission accomplished. If NOM is interested in whittling down the Republican Party again, mission accomplished. On the other hand, I am interested in growing the GOP.

Down the road, gay marriage will be brought up for a vote in Colorado. No doubt, when that happens, NOM and like-minded organizations will come to Colorado with money and pious intonations about who can and who can't marry. If the Republican Party in Colorado wants to remain relevant to my generation, it would do well to reject both.

When gay marriage becomes legal in Colorado ? and I believe it inevitably will ? I hope that Republicans and Democrats will join together to support equality.

Of course, conservatives should not give up their principals for political gain. But here, you can have your cake and let a gay couple have their wedding cake, too. One can ? for personal or religious reasons ? believe that marriage ought to be between a man and a woman, while at the same time supporting state-recognized same-sex marriage.

A live-and-let-live mentality is one that many young people embrace, and it's one that the Colorado GOP can learn from. Indeed, if it does not want to lose a generation, it's a mentality that the Republican Party must learn from.

Matt Barnum, a former resident of Colorado Springs, attends law school in Chicago.

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/dp-opinion/~3/g_GOO_Qv-lk/voters-may-flee-gop-over-gayrights

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