Who Owns the Gay Vote
I had an interesting conversation with a close friend of mine yesterday. She has been a good friends since our Junior High School. As a small business-person, she is facing ever increasing pressures from taxes and regulations.
These are close to debilitating to her business.
During the course of the conversation, she mentioned her dissatisfaction with the Democrats for three reasons: their approach to taxes, regulatory proposals, and their not moving on gay rights issues. She was also quite adamant that many within the Gay community agree with her.
Is there a potential partnership between Gay Rights and Libertarian groups? If so, what are the next steps to exploring how we might work together and welcome each other into the fold?
Do the Democrats “own” the gay vote? It would seem that they are representing less and less of them every day. The question is, are the Republicans ready to support their needs and views?
Even more likely is that this group may become a large independent swing block of votes. If 10% of Americans are Gay and a quarter to a half of them are conservative in their fiscal leanings, then that could be a game changer.
I can speak to this. As a gay man who was a far-left (yes, socialist) in the 70s who came to his senses in the late 80s and is now a small-l libertarian, gay people are *natural* libertarians, IF you can pry them away from the Democrat party. Sadly, many of my people don’t think for themselves, and are convinced that the Democrat party is the only answer.
Richard
22 Oct 09 at 12:40 pm
Richard is correct. Many people (from all walks of life) are, sadly, very impressionable of pop culture icons. Many famous gay people are Democrats and constantly endorse Democratic candidates. As a result, it’s very plausible that many gay folks see the Democratic Party as their champions.
Scott J.
22 Oct 09 at 4:15 pm
Richard – I wouldn’t agree with prying anyone away from one party of another, but would ask, “how do we convince them to switch parties?”
Nathan K.
26 Oct 09 at 8:26 am
Nathan:
Believe me, I’ve been trying to do this for almost 20 years. The key is to show them that libertarian ideas are more in line with how they live their lives.
Gay marriage: libertarians believe in separation of marriage and state. Gay marriage is a non-issue for us–two people should be able to form a partnership of any kind they want, free of force or fraud.
Taxes: the more of your wealth that government confiscates, the less freedom you have, and the fewer choices you are able to make.
War on Drugs: we all know where libertarians stand on this, and for better or worse, “my people” do like to party.
Stuff like this is what I try to share with fellow gays.
Richard
26 Oct 09 at 9:34 am