Reflections on the Right Side of the Rainbow

Executive Director of PhillyGayCalendar

Now that “don’t ask, don’t tell” has been officially buried, it’s worth reflecting on a significant difference between the LGBT civil rights movement as it has evolved and the one that made it possible for me to live as I have as an African-American so far.

That difference is this: The LGBT civil rights fight has become a bipartisan, bipolar affair, with supporters coming from the Left and the Right.

While it’s true that the gay-rights movement arose from the same animating spirits that gave rise to the New Left in the 1960s, and its chief spokespeople and icons have largely held liberal political views, as the movement staked out the center of the American polity starting in the 1980s (as noted in my last column on this subject), it began to acquire open, vocal supporters among conservatives.

One of the earliest was Barry Goldwater, the longtime Arizona senator and Republican candidate for president whom Lyndon Johnson famously buried in 1964. Apparently, Goldwater learned a valuable lesson from the days when he opposed the African-American Civil Rights Movement: sometimes, private actions can add up to a collective wrong that only the law can redress.

But others have joined him since. Margaret Hoover, Herbert’s granddaughter, last fall argued in an essay on FoxNews.com that conservatives who were interested in preserving valuable traditions should support, not oppose, gay marriage as a way for bringing a marginalized group of Americans into the mainstream. The Federal judge who overturned California’s Proposition 8 is a Reagan appointee who is known for his libertarian views. One of the two lawyers who filed suit to overturn “don’t ask, don’t tell” was a longtime conservative activist, and Sen. John McCain’s daughter, Meghan, was not shy about stating her disagreement with her father on the issue.

While I am pleased that a large segment of the Right has recognized LGBT people as their fellow Americans too, I can’t help but feel a little sorry for these supporters, out there on a limb that other conservatives keep trying to saw off. The dynamic was nowhere better captured than in the movement of Sen. McCain himself on “don’t ask, don’t tell” repeal: when he sought support from the broad center of the country, he expressed his willingness to consider ending the policy, but when he needed to shore up his support within his own party’s base, he quickly shut his mind.

With the Right ascendant for the moment in Washington, we can expect little progress on expanding the right to marry, for most movement conservatives remain opposed to anything that even smacks of gay marriage, like civil unions. President Obama’s position may be evolving on the subject, but the unreconstructed Right’s isn’t yet. However, that makes it all the more important that supporters of LGBT equality on the Left embrace and encourage their counterparts on the Right who also seek to advance that goal. That way lies ultimate success.

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