So this is interesting:
Billionaire industrialist David Koch, who is helping steer millions of dollars to elect Mitt Romney and congressional Republicans, on Thursday told POLITICO he disagrees with the GOP’s stance on gay marriage [sic]. . .
Koch told POLITICO “I believe in gay marriage [sic]” when asked about the GOP’s stance on gay rights.
Romney opposes gay marriage [sic], as do most Republicans, and when that was pointed out to Koch, he said “Well, I disagree with that.”
At first I thought, awesome! But then I thought about it more, and I started to get suspicious. (In fairness, I’ll pretty much always be suspicious of anything with the Koch name on it; I have a hard time believing that these guys do anything with pure intentions.)
Okay, so here’s what I’m thinking. Bear with me: the current Republican Party is clearly beholden to its crazy anti-LGBT extremist wing (see the Richard Grenell debacle, John Boehner and House Republicans defending DOMA, and the approval of the most anti-gay party platform in history, to name just three examples). At the top, though, the party leadership and their wealthy puppetmasters can tell which way the way the wind is blowing. They know that the clock is running out as far as the whole anti-gay thing is concerned, they just won’t admit it publicly.
Because public opinion is moving so rapidly in favor of marriage equality, Republican leaders know that their party will inevitably have to evolve on the issue if they wish to remain relevant. At the same time, they know that this will lead to a nasty divorce between the GOP’s fiscally and socially conservative wings, but they’d like to postpone that for as long as possible. So they’re faced with the unenviable task of preparing their reluctant followers for this glacially-slow evolution and looking for ways to dip their toes into the equality pool without upsetting the apple cart too much. Talk about a balancing act!
This balancing act turns into a treacherous tightrope walk thanks to the Religious Right. Any major national-level Republican politician coming out for equality would immediately lose the organizational and financial support of social conservatives, who would also begin fielding candidates for a primary challenge at the earliest possible opportunity. For GOP elected officials, the political risk of supporting equality is still far too great.
But having a major figure coming out in support of the freedom to marry also has its advantages, especially in an election year. For one thing, it would serve to insulate the party against charges of homophobia (“See? We don’t hate gay people. If such-and-such important person thinks gay people should have equal marriage rights, then we’re clearly not anti-gay.”) and perhaps even enable the GOP leadership to convince themselves that they’re blunting President Obama’s clear advantage with allies of the LGBT community. It would shore up the GOP’s credibility with younger voters uncomfortable with casting a vote for an overtly homophobic party and allow them to create the illusion of forward progress on LGBT issues while simultaneously reassuring their socially conservative base, with a wink and a nod, that nothing’s really changed.
In order to do this, you need an important person with widespread name recognition, but who will never have to go before the voters.
You need someone like David Koch.
Of course, this may not be any kind of planned “baby step” at all. After all, as a noted patron of the arts, I’d bet every penny of David Koch’s fortune that he has LGBT friends, enjoys and funds the talents of LGBT artists, and serves on nonprofit boards of directors with LGBT people. So he could just have been engaging in a moment of unscripted candor. But since very little about the Kochs appears to be unscripted, I’m just a little skeptical.
Thoughts, everyone? If it turns out that I’m wildly off-base and David Koch’s evolution on marriage turns out to be genuine, we’ll just pretend this post never happened. But if I turn out to be right, or nearly right? Well, folks, you read it here first.
Or, we just have to accept that they are real libertarians who believe in personal freedom.
The Kochs, as much as I revile their support the GOP are the way they are primarily because of their father. Their support for the Republicans is based in the vision he had of the world – and it was a frightening world indeed that he thought he saw. However, to the best of my knowledge, while racial equality, any form of Socialism, and much of Roman Catholicism were suspect (he also helped found the John Birch Society), homosexuality wasn’t particularly in his targeting crosshairs. It should come as no surprise therefore that his children, or at least one of them, feel no onus against gay people.
John McCain’s wife and daughter have actively worked for marriage equality, so has W.s daughter, while Cheney’s daughter is gay. W himself was known to have told one of his staff that he didn’t give a d*mn if two guys got married. I know several prominent Republicans in this area and have a colleague who was the CEO of a regional corporation until he retired (he came to us part time because he doesn’t like not working). All but one of them personally support marriage equality.
I don’t think Mr. Koch misspoke, or calculated. I think he supports marriage equality. I think many (perhaps even most although we will never know ) Republican ELITES do. I also think that it doesn’t matter a bit. I believe (know actually) that people who supported marriage equality personally sat in a room and allowed the head of a hate group to craft the most anti-gay plank in the history of either party for the platform in Tampa; and they allowed that same man to suggest that all gays should leave the GOP, because the Democratic party was their home. I have to say, as a Democrat I wouldn’t mind that. LGBT people (not counting closeted ones) account for about 1% of the GOP vote — maybe a bit more. Enough to make a difference in close races.
The reality is, the elites fund the party, but their hold on it is very lite, and what they think simply doesn’t matter to conservative religious activists, who control the structure on the ground in many states. That disconnect saved our senate control in 2010 — the extreme threw up candidates who won primaries (3 of them) but had no shot in the general, even in races where they otherwise might have dominated. I think it may save us again this year. They have loose cannons who are just now gaining attention. We can’t count on it continuing however (we the Dems).
Marriage equality will not gain traction in the GOP for many years. They punish moderates, what few there are, who cross party lines — as they are in NY now, and they ignore or silence those leaders (and I think its a lot more than Koch) who support it. What is more promising is, 37% of GOP youth report to pollsters that they do NOT believe it should be an issue for their party and/or that they support it. THOSE figures should give the GOP pause on the issue in another decade or so, if the trend holds steady.
Kind thoughts,
Reyn
For the record, the lead counsel for Koch Industries is none other than Ted Olson. By the way, every summer David has one huge party in the Hamptons. Needless to say, we were over-represented at those events. BTW, my late partner thought that everyone was gay – including David Koch.
Yes, I agree quite a bit with Reyn. The Kochs are dedicated Libertarian pro-individualist, pro-capitalist meritocrats. They are probably likable and fair minded guys on a personal level. Their father spent enough time in the USSR to see how absolutely ruthless Stalin was and how important it is to stop that kind of communism no matter what the cost. But pro-gay would fit with their individualist ethic. Their father founded the John Birch Society and they founded the Cato Institute. For a libertarian its hard to choose which is worse, Republican religiosity or Democrat socialism.
Sorry Will, but you are really trotting a sad tired and rather pathetic line out about Democratic ‘socialism’ and you obviously have no clue what REAL socialism looks like! I am NOT fooled by the statements from David Koch, and have no doubt that the Kochs would throw the gay community under the bus and back up over us too if it would benefit them or make them more money!
The Democrats are conservatives by European and international standards. They are center-left at best. Not even social democrats. The Republicans are far-right nationalists. There are no organized socialists in the US.