The New York Times headline says the Republicans who signed a legal brief arguing in favor of same sex marriage are “prominent,” but in fact this is a very marginal group that includes no one in a real position of power.

WASHINGTON — Dozens of prominent Republicans — including top advisers to former President George W. Bush, four former governors and two members of Congress — have signed a legal brief arguing that gay people have a constitutional right to marry, a position that amounts to a direct challenge to Speaker John A. Boehner and reflects the civil war in the party since the November election.

The document will be submitted this week to the Supreme Court in support of a suit seeking to strike down Proposition 8, a California ballot initiative barring same-sex marriage, and all similar bans. The court will hear back-to-back arguments next month in that case and another pivotal gay rights case that challenges the 1996 federal Defense of Marriage Act.

The Proposition 8 case already has a powerful conservative supporter: Theodore B. Olson, the former solicitor general under Mr. Bush and one of the suit’s two lead lawyers. The amicus, or friend-of-the-court, brief is being filed with Mr. Olson’s blessing. It argues, as he does, that same-sex marriage promotes family values by allowing children of gay couples to grow up in two-parent homes, and that it advances conservative values of “limited government and maximizing individual freedom.”

So how do you imagine the right wing base is going to respond to this attempt at a “rebranding” scam? If you answered, “With a torrent of bigotry and hatred,” you win!

Let’s check out Hot Air, which is supposed to be a “socially centrist” right wing blog. How are the commenters responding to Allahpundit’s weak endorsement of this legal brief? Well, there are a very few people supporting this initiative, but by far the majority of the comments are like these:

Yay, now maybe NAMBLA will send some bucks toward the GOP.

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The Vichy Right.

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Many prminent Republicans are out of touch with their consituency in America’s Heartland.

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May each and every one of them be sent packing their bags come next election.

We are not fooled. We know darn well what’s really at stake is religious liberty, not a few members of the buggery brigade with self-inflicted butthurt (in more ways than one) being unable to have their relationship sanctioned by the state.

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The Republican party is dead.

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Caligula’s horse apporves.

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This is one area where I have to give Russia credit. They know how to deal with their perverts over there.

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These people can not be considered Republicans in any sense…

The GOP is not a conservative party… it’s an imperialist party… and grassroots national security conservatives and capitalist conservatives have aided this transition… and I want nothing to do with it anymore.

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The end goal of the SSM crowd isn’t SSM, it’s to force acceptance of homosexuality by those who regard it as unnatural an immoral. Government sanctioned SSM will give rise to government sanctioned bullying, suing, discrimination, etc. of religious people and organizations who refuse to give homosexual relationships the moral equivalence they demand.

This isn’t about equal rights, its about forcing people to accept something against their will or to STFU if they won’t accept.

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“RINO” is too nice a word for those “Republicans”. Supporting this kind of approach to gay marriage is absolutely against what Republicans should stand for.

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If gay marriage was about who you love, “gay” would be synonymous with “homoLOVEuality” not “homoSEXuality”. It’s about men having sex with men. It’s unhealthy, perverted, mutual masturbation. It’s responsible for the country’s AIDS epidemic. Isn’t there some sensible person who’ll stand up and call it for what it is? I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings, but, this is a major cultural shift, redefining the word “marriage”, for everyone, for all time. For our children, in our religious institutions, in every formal and informal social circle we inhabit. Let’s not gloss over what we’re talking about.

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Jesus weeps.

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Yes, in modern America, all prominence comes from helping obama destroy America, because, as we all know, by its very nature, America is bad, and must be transformed.

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Should homosexual men be allowed to “marry” 11 year old boys? The Founders didn’t deem it necessary to put in the Constitution that men can’t marry other men or 11 year old boys. Ruth Bader Ginsburg feels the age of consent should be 11. The only basis in the future on which you prevent homosexual men from marrying 11 year old foreign orphan boys is that it shocks the conscious of the majority and the majority won’t allow it. What shocks your conscious is irrelevant to the sort of people who Democrats promote to the bench.

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Come on, people. You are going to have to step it up if a comment is going to be reposted at LGF. NONE of these comments are hateful enough!

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Oh how cute, the little corn-pone faggot accusing me of being a closet pervert. Maybe we talk about it because that’s what they DO, you knuckle-dragging bumpkin.

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There is no such thing as gay pretend marriage. You idiots cannot just redefine anything you want and then try and claim that it was always defined like that. Of course, you leftist scum specialize in tearing language apart and leaving nothing but meaningless utterances and a disheveled syntax, reflections of your fevered minds.

Gay pretend marriage is not illegal in various states, the perversion of the language just doesn’t exist in those states any more than marriage of a man and a car exists.

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No one really cares what lesbians do. Lesbianism is a big nothing-burger. Lesbianism is just pathetic but not much of an affront to sensibilities - except for bull dykes doing some ridiculous imitations of what they think is manly behavior. They are sort of offensive, though kind of funny.

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There is still no such thing as gay pretend marriage. If you find a gene for homosexual attraction (and I have little doubt that there is, though much homosexuality is environmental and a matter of “fashion” among the leftist perverts) then you’ll also find one for pedophilia. Are you advocating for pedophiles to be “legalized” and marriages to 5 year olds sanctioned because some screwed-up chromosomes might support that? I’m sure you do, because you are a brain-dead leftist who is out to do nothing but tear civilization down and return the Earth to slime, your biological peers.

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Does anyone other than Allahpundit give a damn what his buddy David Frum thinks (about anything)?

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These people can not be considered Republicans in any sense…

The GOP is not a conservative party… it’s an imperialist party… and grassroots national security conservatives and capitalist conservatives have aided this transition… and I want nothing to do with it anymore.

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Isn’t it just hilarious that sexual deviancy not only goes against any moral system worth speaking of, but even against the most basic Darwinian concepts which liberals tout as superior to creation?

If a “gay gene” existed (which is does not), it would be DE-volution, a step backward by evolutionary standards, because it went 180 degrees against continuation of the species! How crazy is that?

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The headline should read.Dozens of prominent elite Rinos sign supreme court brief.

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Isn’t it funny how even a straight-forward discussion of homosexuality leads to the use of terms which are totally accurate, but still trigger decency filters?

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It may be ants that eat at the body of liberty, but give the ants long enough, enough methods of attack, and enough ants the body of liberty will be eaten.

Cut off the ant trails to the body of liberty and you have less ant bites.

On and on and on it goes. I guess this rebranding thing is harder than it looks.

And remember, this is at the right wing site that’s supposed to be socially centrist. I don’t have the stomach for it, but if you really want to see the right wing base freely expressing itself, check out Free Republic. Just be sure to wear your HazMat suit.