Coulter Speaks to Gay Republicans: ‘You’re Not Black’
The “gay Republican” is a weird chimera, trying to carve out a place in a political party fiercely committed to denying them civil rights. I’d like to wish them good luck, but this seems like the very definition of “wasted effort.”
And Ann Coulter’s speech at GOProud’s “Homocon” event is a stark reminder of that: Ann Coulter At Homocon: ‘Marriage Is Not A Civil Right. You’re Not Black.’
First, she ran down the stereotypical stand-up comedian’s list of reasons, including that lacking the legal right to marriage allows the less-committed partner to weasel out of it. But in a more serious note, she parroted the losing arguments of the lawyers supporting California’s Prop 8 and told the crowd that the reason she opposes (and they should oppose) same sex marriage is that it is strictly for procreation.
In one of a series of racially insensitive remarks that pervaded her speech, Coulter added, “Marriage is not a civil right. You’re not black.” It was part of a larger argument on which she later elaborated, telling the crowd that the 14th Amendment only applies to African-Americans and that it does not, in fact, apply to women, LGBT people or other minorities.
Despite the laugh lines, Coulter’s arguments against same sex marriage were not well-received by much of the crowd: for instance, the question and answer session after the speech was dominated by Homocon attendees grilling her on her position on a range of issues, including whether opposition to same sex marriage was really in line with the conservative principles of limited government and whether she personally believes that homosexuality is a choice — a question she declined to answer. In response to a question from GOProud chairman Chris Barron, she did imply that conservative opposition to same sex marriage from politicians who benefited from no-fault divorce was hypocritical and suggested that marriage-minded politicians ought to back a wholesale effort to repeal no-fault divorce laws in the states.
In fact, despite opening her speech with a joke about the difficulty of “coming out” as a fiscal conservative to one’s parents — something she congratulated the attendees on — Coulter’s speech to GOProud mystifyingly focused on social issues and not the fiscal and foreign policy issues that brought most of the attendees there. For instance, she told GOProud that the conservative gay rights movement ought to make common cause with the anti-abortion movement because, she said, “as soon as they find the gay gene, you know who’s getting aborted.” Coulter also made a forceful case against sex education in schools, accusing liberals of attempting to teach kindergartners about “fisting” (which garnered her a heckler, who shouted out “What’s wrong with fisting?”) and told the crowd that most parents didn’t want their children learning about the “homosexual lifestyle” instead of reading and writing.