While we're at it... thanks Bil for doing the outreach between HRC and Trans* communities. I've already posted at length why I think HRC needs to change before this effort can be successful, but the point is, someone has to try, and keep trying. It's a thankless and discouraging task, so please accept my thanks and encouragement.

I should have said this before now. So please take it as read, now and in future, Ok?

If the Log Cabin can help their party see the light, the GOP could realistically be pulling close to 50% of the moderate G&L vote. Good work LCR.

Way to go.

I've never actually voted for a Republican for President, unless you count independent candidate John Anderson in 1980 -- my first election. Mine was a family of moderate Republicans, and my military father embraced the idea of public service. I came to believe that with wealth came obligation -- noblesse oblige, not greed. Faced with Reagan's "voodoo economics" and the rise of the Moral Majority and intolerant Republicans, I became a Democrat to this day.

There's a lot to be said for the old-fashioned Republican values, the principled ones of Lincoln and the trust-busting ones of Roosevelt among others. If the GOP can refocus on things other than narrow-minded prejudices and invocations of self-centered opportunism, maybe it will recover.

As someone who was active in the Party during the last major rise of the RR, and only grudgingly shifted to independent *this year*, um...

no. Sorry, can't do it. It would be giving them credit for something they didn't do.

Al of those things are stuff one should laud the GOP for, since it looks and sounds like the very first steps towards moving away from "God's Own Party" and back to the grand old party that holds the Constitution as the heart and soul of what is "traditional", especially that one part about "all men are created equal".

Blinks to make sure im on the right blog? Nice things about any stripe of Republican???See thats what I have been trying to tell you we need not be all of the same stripe to want the same goal maybe just diffeent ways to get to it.Bil you are correct the new DNC is not all liberals there is a resergence of the Blue Dogs who may or may not be open minded to what we as a whole want.So look to those who in the GOP are willing to stick there necks out to supporrt us and you may just find some odd friends on certain issues.

C R A S H !!!!!! (minor earthquake)

(rustling noises, crack of smelling salts)

(waking up at the ER) Aaarrghhhh! What happened? I could swear I'd read Bil saying something positive about the LCR. No way!

I'm sure there will be some movement afloat to retake the GOP from the religious reich. I don't expect it to be successful, at least not in the states that are still ruled by GOP fist. But the GOP will have to change to win back the Federal government. And I don't think, at least in my state, it's capable of changing. It is, like it or not, the party that is for, by, and about the knuckle-dragging bible thumping 'necks.

The most intriguing statistic I read this year was from a survey of delegates to the RNC.

49% of delegates believed that either same-sex marriage or civil unions should be recognized. Only 6% approved of marriage, 43% civil unions.

Think about that.

This indicates that Republicans who are considered to be leaders within their party are individually more comfortable with legal recognition of same-sex partnerships than they are as a party.

I don't understand the mentality that leads a gay person to identify with the Republican Party, but I'm glad the LCRs exist, as long as they continue to dialog not only with themselves but with other Republicans. They can play a vital role in helping to guide their party to understand that scapegoating and demonizing gay people is a losing strategy.