By Scott Tibbs, March 1st, 2004
Good Riddance to Brostoff
So Mark Brostoff, an openly gay twice-failed Republican City Council candidate, has deserted the Republican Party because of President Bush's support for the Federal Marriage Amendment. For Brostoff, this was an issue that cut off his loyalty to the party.
If homosexual marriage is so important to Brostoff, I do not understand why he was ever in the party to begin with. Brostoff left the Democratic Party in 1997 because city Republicans supported him in his efforts to keep the city ice rink open. It has been obvious since Brostoff left the Democrats that most of the GOP supports a ban on homosexual marriage. In fact, before Brostoff even defected to the Republican Party in the first place the Republican Congress passed the Defense of Marriage Act to allow states not to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.
Brostoff cannot expect conservatives (who make up the base of the Republican Party) to abandon their views on homosexual marriage to keep "Log Cabin Republicans" like him in the party. Brostoff certainly cannot expect Christian conservatives (like President Bush) to put aside their views on sexual morality and not support an amendment they believe is needed. While I do not support the FMA as currently written I do believe an amendment to both the federal and Indiana Constitutions is needed enshrining marriage as an institution between one man and one woman.
Eleven years ago, I left the Democratic party when it became obvious that disgraced ex-President Clinton was not the "moderate" he campaigned as. While I held conservative views on matters like abortion and taxes, I identified as a Democrat, mostly because my family had a good number of Democrats. I did not expect the Democratic Party to embrace tax cuts, protection of the right to keep and bear arms, and a pro-life position on abortion. Instead, I went to a party that already held similar views to mine.
I find it laughable that Brostoff is concerned about government taking away rights when he lobbied Indiana University (a tax-supported entity) to censor the web log of professor Eric Rasmusen because Rasmusen was saying things Brostoff disagreed with. I withheld my vote from Brostoff when he endorsed censorship.
So where does Brostoff go now? He's alienated the Republican Party by making a very public exit in a Presidential election year, and from what I have seen the Democrats are not in a hurry to accept their prodigal son with open arms.
Brostoff, with his liberal views on social issues, never fit in with the Republican Party, so I'm not sad to see him go. In fact, his departure is addition by subtraction. With one less person openly trying to pull the party away from its' conservative base, the party is actually stronger and more unified than it was before.
Good bye, Mark Brostoff. Don't let the door hit you on the way out.