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I expect that the professional anti-LGBTs will not like what head of the Republican National Committee, Reince Priebus, had to say about employment nondiscrimination and the LGBT community Sunday on Meet the Press. Host David Gregory managed to get a pretty clear declaration that Priebus won’t be about to weasel out of once Bryan Fischer and Tony Perkins blow a gasket:
DAVID GREGORY:
But do you believe that gays and lesbians in America deserve equal rights?
REINCE PRIEBUS:
I think they deserve equal rights in regard to, say, discrimination in the workplace, issues such as, as Mitt Romney has pointed out numerous times, hospital visitations. I mean I think that for the sake of dignity and respect, sure. But if you’re defining marriage as a civil right, then no. I don’t believe that people who are same sex should be able to married under our laws.
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On the matter of marriage equality, Preibus gave some tortuous responses, using predictable “this is the way marriage has always been” and thus it should remain the province of heterosexuals. The other, more offensive defense for institutionalized bigotry is the “Oppression Olympics” argument for supporting a constitutional amendment to bar gays and lesbians from marrying — that this fight for access to marriage doesn’t rise to the level of civil rights because the LGBT community hasn’t suffered enough violence in order to deserve it.
DAVID GREGORY:
Do you think the fight for gay marriage is a civil rights struggle ?
REINCE PRIEBUS:
I don’t think it’s a matter of civil rights. I think it’s just a matter of whether or not we’re going to adhere to something that’s been historical and religious and legal in this country for many, many years. I mean marriage has to have a definition. And we just happen to believe it’s between a man and a woman. So–
DAVID GREGORY:
For those people who do think it’s a civil right would say all those things you’ve just said could have been said about Jim Crow laws.
REINCE PRIEBUS:
Well, I–
DAVID GREGORY:
Except the religion piece.
REINCE PRIEBUS:
I think there’s a big difference between people that have been murdered and everything else that have come with Jim Crow than marriage between a man and a man and a woman and a woman. Here’s what we agree on. Is that people in this country, no matter straight or gay, deserve dignity and respect. However, that doesn’t mean it carries on to marriage. And I think that most Americans agree that in this country the legal and historical and religious union, marriage has to have the definition of one man and one woman.
Of course Preibus ran into some serious inconsistencies over the idea of federalizing the issue of marriage, when Mitt Romney supports a federal marriage amendment. Read on for some serious #FAIL.
DAVID GREGORY:
I want to ask you one more on this. This past week, and I’ll just read it here, you said here you believe that marriage is between one man and one woman. “We,” meaning the Republicans, “believe that you can’t federalize that kind of mandate.” And yet the standard bearer of the party, Governor Romney, wants to do just that. He does want to federalize it. He supports a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.
REINCE PRIEBUS:
Well, first of all, I agree with the governor. And maybe I–
(OVERTALK)
DAVID GREGORY:
How can you–
REINCE PRIEBUS:
–because I–
DAVID GREGORY:
Right. And it (UNINTEL).
–perhaps it was in artful, but here is the point. At the time we were debating President Obama’s incredible evolution of mind on this issue. As if the American people are sitting around as the hourglass is being turned and you can wait for President Obama to evolve over his opinions on this particular issue.
My point is as we sit here today, under today’s law, we don’t have a marriage amendment. But under today’s law President Obama’s decision in front of Robin Roberts isn’t going to change anything. The fact of the matter is we have DOMA. We don’t have an amendment. And states across America are making this decision. And states across are America–
DAVID GREGORY:
But you’re saying–
MALE VOICE:
–agree with me.
DAVID GREGORY:
You said, “Don’t federalize it.”
MALE VOICE:
Yes.
DAVID GREGORY:
The nominee of the party says, “Federalize it. A constitutional ban.”
(OVERTALK)
DAVID GREGORY:
Is that what the party believes?
REINCE PRIEBUS:
Of course. And for Mitt Romney–
DAVID GREGORY:
And this is part of the platform?
REINCE PRIEBUS:
It is part of the platform. And for the record, we do agree with a marriage amendment and we do agree with DOMA. But as we sit today we don’t have a constitutional amendment–
DAVID GREGORY:
But you would want to see one is (UNINTEL)?
REINCE PRIEBUS:
Sure I would.
11 Comments
Take all the vowels out of “Reince Priebus” and what do you get?
My thoughts…
* RP says Obama may “crusade” on marriage equality? WTF!
* Rand Paul (another RP)… call me slow, but I hadn’t gotten the full double entendre until now — Obama as gay-affirming, and gay in the adolescent, “bad”, way. Priebus sounded embarrassed.
* RP and “people that have been murdered…” it’s too easy for me to forget that others haven’t heard the black and gay comparisons re: civil rights, that LGBTs aren’t arguing that the experiences have been identical or that lynchings were equal to transgender murders, and yet, RP doesn’t know Harvey Milk or Matthew Shepard?
* RP: “they deserve equal rights in regard to, say, discrimination in the workplace…” You’re right, Pam. This is where he steps in it. The GOP stance has been that discrimination doesn’t really exist, but Christian employers should be free to weed out the gays. Romney hasn’t gone anywhere near the lightning rod RP just erected.
Huh????
How many heterosexuals have been murdered in order for them to have their civil right to be married?
How many heterosexuals have been murdered in order to gain their civil right to not be fired from their job for being straight?
How many heterosexuals have been murdered in order to gain the right to equal access to housing?
When will they learn that there isn’t a required level of violence that has to be obtained in order to be deserving of rights? That’s why they are called “rights”.
The RNC has made the choice to lie down with the hard right extremists in order to advance their party. Now that they see their bigotry as a losing proposition with regards to the independents and conservative dems they desperately need to win the general election, they are trying ever so hard to walk back on their anti-equality platform. Good luck with that. The devil will demand his due.
So the strategy is to off a few more gays, then he’ll change his mind.
Yeah, God knows no gays have been lynched in this country (Matthew Shepard).
So we can haz vote on ENDA now? (H.R. 1397/S. 811)
President Obama supports it. The head of the RNC supports it. Maybe it’s about time we put it to a Congressional vote.
I mean, just adding “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to the list of things you can’t be discriminated against for, like “race, creed, color or national origin”? Lots of companies have it in their rules already. Time for the biggest one of all to join them.
Oh you know, that was just a hoax. Virginia Foxx said so… in front of Matthew’s mother. So hard-right conservatives can just, you know, ignore Matthew Shepard. It’s all, like: whatever…
Just thinking of Michael Steele. I never did, and still don’t, have much agreement with him. But after he got kicked out of his RNC job and became a correspondent on MSNBC, I gained a lot of respect for him as a thinking person. But this jackass? I cannot conceive of him managing to ever climb out of the cesspool in his head that passes as a mind.
The reality of that argument of RP is that gays are actually lynching themselves more these days. Nobody else has to get blood on their hands.
How many African American youths commit suicide because they can’t bear the thought of growing up Black in a bigoted, hate-filled society? If they are, it’s not being reported.
How mindlessly opaque is the statement that “marriage is between a man and a woman”?