Little known fact, or so it seems to be, Fred Phelps, the man in charge of the infamous Westboro Baptist Church, ran for Governor of Kansas 3 times (1990, 1994, and 1998)…registered as a Democrat.
He is still registered as a Democrat.
He supported Al Gore quite vocally, along with many other members of his family.
He also ran, twice, as a Democrat, for Mayor of Topeka. (1993 and 1997).
In 1992 he ran in the Democratic Party primary for U.S. Senate. Phelps won 31% of the vote…in a state that runs closed primaries.
For those of you unaware, a closed primary is one in which only those registered to a party can vote. In Kansas the chairman of the political parties may grant registered independents the right to vote in their primary, but an independent can only vote in one primary in any given election, either Democrat or Republican.
So presumably, unless voter fraud is horribly rampant (something liberals, or at least the New York Times opinion page, deny virulently), 31% of Democratic and Independent voters in the state of Kansas believed that Fred Phelps would be a good Senator.
Now I’ll grant you, this is Kansas we are talking about. Part of the Bible Belt, not far from the Bible Belt state I grew up in. On top of that, I know that political feelings vary from state to state. I live in Arizona, where 75% of the liberals are probably more ‘conservative’ in their beliefs than any East Coast conservative.
And they would probably leave East Coast liberals wondering how they belonged to the same political party.
But they are still Democrats.
So what is my point in all of this?
My only point is that hate does not have a political party. Morality does not have a political party.
You can be a registered Democrat and hate gay people, soldiers, the military, America, and anyone who doesn’t fit into your view of how society should be.
And you can be a registered Republican who wants freedom and individual rights, who loves everyone equally for who they are, not who they sleep with, and acts with honor and integrity.
There are differences between how we approach politics, that does not make one side moral and the other immoral.
It makes us different and, despite what some make think, our differences make us stronger.
Democrat does not equal tolerance and compassion.
Not anymore than Republican equals bigot and hate-monger.
That is the realm of our personal beliefs and actions, not the realm of our politics.
Fred Phelps makes that obvious enough.
But was Phelps being his batshit crazy current self back then, or was he more temperate? I suspect if we could see the Phelps of ’92, he’d seem much more reasonable. At least compared to his current incarnation.
I’m pretty sure you are missing my point.
He is still a registered Democrat. He didn’t suddenly become a Republican when he started going after gay people.
Nope, didn’t miss it. But using an outlier as an example doesn’t do much but indicate the exceptions to the rules. I don’t know why Phelps is still registered Democratic, since he doesn’t seem to hold any values the party has held over the years, at least in most of his lifetime!
When I lambast the Republican party about something, I don’t intend to sweep up EVERY single Republican in my rant. It’s the particular person I’m writing about, and the party in general, that I’m going on about. For every Newt Gringrich on the right, there’s an Anthony Wiener on the left. And you’ll notice something interesting about that – Gingrich is in the running for the Republican nomination, and Wiener has been drummed out of power. I think that says a lot about each party, regardless of how many in each don’t agree with the results.
As a general rule, the Republicans are working against us, and the Democrats for us. I’ll continue to point that out, the Fred Phelps’ of the world not withstanding.
Thanks for pointing this out. It’s important to understand that political parties, while useful, are not the ultimate benchmark for how liberal or conservative a person may be.
I myself am an example of this as I recently changed my party affiliation for the express purpose of voting for Fred Karger in the California Presidential primaries.
Are there good Repulicans? YES.
Are there bad Democrats? YES.
Hate is hate, and it doesn’t swear allegiance to anyone or anything.
Exactly. I’m glad you see my point.
I disagree more than I agree with you Chris (and Meredith). While I agree that there are both good and bad Republicans and Democrats, the fact remains and is indisputable, that the Republican Party as a whole is far more anti-equality with respect specifically to gays and lesbians than the Democratic Party. We don’t need Log Cabin Democrats because gays and lesbians can openly be Democrats while as a whole the Republican Party generally does not welcome gays (or their equal standing) with open arms. In fact, being openly and fiercely anti-gay is more expected, encouraged, and wide-spread amongst Republicans.
Unfortunately I think that you and Jim are both missing my point, though perhaps I just did not make myself clear enough.
I’m not talking about party generalities on who is more pro or anti gay. That’s a topic for another time.
I’m referring personal party affiliation and the stereotypes that come with it.
The moniker ‘Democrat’ doesn’t make a person pr-gay.
The moniker ‘Republican’ doesn’t make a person anti-gay.
However, that is the concept that gets thrown around a lot. I agree with 95% (give or take 10%) of the Republican platform. I agree with, perhaps, 5% of the Democratic platform. That makes me a Republican in my eyes. That does not, however, make me anti-gay.
Phelps agrees with Democratic ideas more than Republican, I assume since he ran as a Democrat, that doesn’t make him pro-gay.
Being a Democrat also didn’t make Robert Byrd, Democratic Senator from West Virginia, not a member of the KKK.
Our personal affiliations are a lot more telling than our political ones.
Nope, didn’t miss it. Thanks anyway though!