Oh No He Didn't ! Michael Steele said being gay isn't a "choice" - The Fundie Jihad is on!!!

[marmar]

from the insane asylum known as the American Family Assn: :crazy:



Republican National Chairman Michael Steele says abortion is a choice, homosexuality is not


In a recent interview, Republican National Chairman Michael Steele told GQ magazine that he supports abortion rights. "I think that's an individual choice (to have an abortion)," he said.


Are you saying you think women have the right to choose abortion?
Yeah. I mean, again, I think that’s an individual choice.

You do?
Yeah. Absolutely.

Steele later issued a statement "clarifying” his comments regarding abortion saying he is “pro-life.”

Steele also disputed the view that being homosexual is a lifestyle choice. "I don't think I've ever really subscribed to that view that you can turn it on and off like a water tap. ...You just can't simply say, oh, like, 'Tomorrow morning I'm gonna stop being gay.' It's like saying 'Tomorrow morning I'm gonna stop being black,'" explained Steele.

Steele said an amendment to define marriage as a union between one man and one woman is a state issue and is “mucking around with the Constitution.”

In light of Chairman Steele’s remarks, should he resign as Chairman of the Republican National Committee?

We ask that only registered Republicans, or those who voted Republican in the last election participate.


http://www.afa.net/petitions/steele/takesurvey.asp (there's a poll there too)

[Adsos Letter]

1. this should get interesting...

:popcorn:

[rockymountaindem]

2. Is he trying to get fired?

[marmar]

3. I'm convinced he's a covert Democratic operative sent in to destroy that party.

Or he's just nuts.

[susanna]

13. If he's the former, bring it on. Go Michael!

If it's the latter, well...too bad for the guy. Didn't he get the multiple memos in quadruplicate about what you may and may not support?

[Renew Deal]

10. I think this all came from the same interview.

But for some reason this is the controversy du jur.

[MrPerson]

4. He is so fired.

[billyoc]

5. He's flaming out quite spectacularly.

:rofl:

[TwilightGardener]

6. He's got flashes of sanity...well, this won't stand for long.

Bye bye, Mikey.

[Maru Kitteh]

7. Oh, Michael. What WILL you say next? You ARE the gift that just can't stop talking, aren't you.

Black. √
Rush Limbaugh √
Hip-hop. √
Abortion. √
Teh gay. √


What else ya got Mike?
:rofl:

[Odin2005]

8. I beleive he is what my generation would call "a Lamer" and "is pwned".

:rofl:

[Nikki Stone1]

9. Don't laugh: the GOP is trying to change its image.

They are really going after that gender gap and the socially liberal/fiscally conservative voter. Keep your eye on this guy: he is trying to sweep up the center.

[Renew Deal]

11. But will he outlast the crazies.

I doubt it right now.

[marmar]

12. It won't work......The rabid right-wingers still dominate - this is a battle Steele will lose.

Any moderates in the Repug Party will have to split and form their own Party or find some other party to join.

[Nikki Stone1]

16. I don't know about that. Limbaugh and Coulter aren't going to win 2012.

In the same way that many Democrats saw Hillary Clinton as bringing back the 90s (as unfair as that characterization was), many Republicans will see Limbaugh/Coulter/ etc. as "been there, done that, it didn't work," and will want a more moderate person to head the party. The GOP did not lose because they weren't conservative enough: they lost because they had a drunken frat boy President who drove the entire world into a financial, moral, and (for some NOLA folks) life-ending ditch. McCain was either an attempt to move to the center or a throw-away, depending on who you talk to. The "true conservative" Huckabee would have done much worse than McCain, and I think the GOP knows this. They need to reinvent themselves and Michael Steele is an attempt to do that.

[marmar]

17. I just don't think he'll survive to do it. They're already calling for a no-confidence vote.....

..... and he just got the job.

[Nikki Stone1]

18. They'd be foolish to have such a vote--it would prove (to some) that moderate blacks are not welcome

in the GOP. That would be the dumbest thing they could do.

[Kievan Rus]

20. Of course they want Steele out

Anybody in the GOP that refuses to peddle in fundie rhetoric and actually wants their party to have a shot in 2010 and 2012 isn't gonna be supported by the AFA nutjobs.

On the other hand, if the AFA gets their way and the GOP stays on the hard-right, they're gonna get their butts kicked in 2012. Especially with another generation of young people voting in their first Presidential election -- and Obama has massive support from the youth of America.

[MADem]

23. I agree with you.

They've got no other choice.

I don't think any of this "culture wars" crap is accidental. He's going after the very demographics you cite, along with the "crunchy cons" who have a strong environmental bent and who like their organic carrots. He's going after that pro-choice GOP woman. He's going after those "greedy" gays who like their money, some of whom have no issue with living a lie.

I mean, really--Obama's people ask "Where are you gonna go?" to the people on the far left who get annoyed with some of his centrist decisions. Steele can say the same thing to the fundies--"Where ya gonna go?" They're programmed to believe a "bad" Repubican is better than a good Democrat.

The real, and coming, battle, will be for the center. And as people age, they tend to gather in the middle.

[Political Heretic]

25. There's only one problem - he's at least one if not two election cycles too soon.

So, what's going to happen is his attempts to do this are going to fail, and you can almost count on the 2012 GOP platform being the most extreme, far-right conservatism we've seen yet. This is the stage they are in right now, the powerful core of the party thinks they failed because they got away from their extreme social and economic conservatism. So they're going to first run further to the right.

It will take them at least one presidential election cycle, if not more before they begin to accept the need to shift toward more sensible moderate conservatism.

[crim son]

14. I don't know. I've heard many times that it's not a choice,

it's a burden to be borne "virtuously" like the urge to molest children, say. :sarcasm:

[Kievan Rus]

15. The GOP leadership is beginning to embrace reason

Evidently, pandering the wingnuts didn't work in the last two elections.

The GOP will have to move to the center in order to get competitive in the 2010 Congressional elections and the 2012 Presidential as well. If they run a wingnut (i.e. Palin) against Obama, we'll have a landslide.

[agentS]

19. He has the support of the LGF readership...for now

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/33049_Poll-_Should_Steele_Step_Down/comments/#ctop

Most comments and the poll show support for Steele. Which is weird, but not surprising.

Free Republic? Not so kind...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2206091/posts?q=1&;page=101

[Uzybone]

21. Steele is thinking out loud again

he is using logic and speaking as he does it, what comes out isn't what republicans want to hear.

[MADem]

22. Ha! What these irate Republicans do not realize is that Steele is NO ACCIDENT

And his "misspeaks" aren't really accidents, either.

The GOP is getting ready to do a flip as big as the Southern Strategy flip that Nixon did to win. Steele is the canary in the coal mine.

Mark my words. I've seen this game played before.

We'd do well not to be complacent, or otherwise, we could find ourselves courting the fundy-crazies to make up for lost ground stolen from us in Nixon-Reagan fashion whilst we were resting on our laurels.

It's important to approach these things pragmatically and never consider anything a done deal--it's all on a continuum. The battle never ends.

[Political Heretic]

24. Please, please dear god let Steele be as much of a narcissist as Burris or Blago. Please. PLEASE!!

What we need is a for a guy who complete splinters the GOP into its factional groups, and then is such a pigheaded narcissist that he absolutely refuses to give up power under any circumstances.

This needs to be as ugly and divisive and LONG LASTING as humanly possible.

[Matariki]

26. hmmm. well good for him then.

that was brave.