There are around one million gay Republicans in America and they haven't been too happy lately. Although conservative in disposition, they haven't felt too welcome in America's ostensibly conservative party. What I wonder is, though, what ever made them think that they would be welcome there?

San Diego’s Union Tribune reports:

Gay Republicans voiced their outrage yesterday in a new television ad being aired in New York and at a news conference, blasting the party platform that was adopted yesterday. "This party platform is so outrageous and insulting to some of us that we have to call our party on it," said Patrick Guerriero, executive director of the Log Cabin Republicans.

The Bush administration opposes or has taken no steps to support the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force's 11 major policy initiatives, including lifting the ban on openly gays and lesbians in the military and allowing domestic partners to get Social Security and survivor benefits. Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry has endorsed 10 of the measures, Foreman said. Kerry supports domestic partnerships and opposes same-sex marriage, but opposes a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage.

Gay Republicans are complaining that they don’t have access to the administration to talk about issues — but what did they expect? The Republican Party in general and the Bush administration in particular are heavily dependent upon the votes of the radical Religious Right. I’m not simply talking about theological conservatives, I’m talking about far-right religious zealots who want to reintroduce anti-sodomy laws, ban all abortions, abandon the separation of church and state, and basically make their vision of Christianity the guiding principle of law and public policy.

In such an atmosphere, the only people less welcome than gays are atheists. Of course gays aren’t welcomed by the Bush administration or the Republican Party. They shouldn’t expect anything else — or, at the very least, they should be thankful that they have been treated as well as they have so far. At least the few openly gay delegates to the convention aren’t being tossed out the back door, something I’m sure many on the Christian Right would like to see happen.

Gay conservatives may like how the administration handles things like the war on terrorism, but when you get right down to it a gay voting to keep the Republican Party in power is a gay voting for a party which, if given enough power, would work to push that gay person so far back in the closet that they’ll never see daylight again. Gays have as much rights as they do in America today because of the work of liberal legislators and liberal political groups, not conservatives.

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• Gay Rights, Gay Marriage
• Evangelical Christianity & Homosexuality
• Catholicism & Homosexuality
• 2004 Elections
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• George W. Bush
• John Kerry