One of the stories Republicans and Tea Party activists have obsessed over recently has been the showdown out west at the Bundy Ranch. In case you somehow missed the brouhaha, long story short: a cattle rancher has refused to pay for his use of federal lands for two decades, and the federal government sent armed agents in to collect 20 years worth of overdue fees.
It didn’t end well, for the feds, so conservatives are claiming victory over “tyranny.” The tyranny of having to pay your rent. So much for Republicans not being the party of takers.
Out of this two-week long narrative rose one GOP/Tea Party hero. Nevada Republican Assemblywoman Michelle Fiore went on MSNBC to support the Bundy family and the hundreds of armed “patriots” who stood up to the “tyranny” of the feds. She slammed Chris Hayes. She rudely, angrily, and nastily defended the Bundy takeover of federal lands. Pure right wing Tea Party extremism.
Except here is the twist.
Michelle Fiore proudly supports same-sex marriage.
I stand w our Gov. Thank you @BrianSandoval @GovSandoval for standing up for all Nevadans by not supporting the ban on gay-marriage
— Michele Fiore (@VoteFiore) February 13, 2014
The GOP’s stranglehold against same-sex marriage is waning. Recent polls show that six out of ten Republicans 18-29 support same-sex marriage, along with 43 percent of Republicans aged 30-49, and at least 55+ percent of the nation.
But don’t tell that to Tony Perkins.
Perkins is looking to become a U.S. Congressman or Senator and he’s increasingly rubbing shoulders with GOP leaders, including his home state governor of Louisiana, Bobby Jindal, to make that goal a reality.
Perkins and his predecessor, Gary Bauer, both shoulders-deep in Republican theocratic Christian evangelical politics, are fighting back, hard.
In response to the Nevada GOP removing opposition to same-sex marriage from its party platform last week, and in advance of similar actions likely underway elsewhere, Perkins and Bauer are “releasing a poll of base voters taken last month that found in favor of defining marriage ‘only’ as between a man and a woman,” Politico reports:
The survey showed 82 percent agreeing with a statement that marriage should be between “one man and one woman.†It also found 75 percent disagreed that “politicians should support the redefinition of marriage to include same-sex couples.â€
Bauer, the president of American Values, faulted a “misinformation campaign waged by media elites†and insisted that “public policy-makers are doing a great disservice to themselves and future generations by continuing to misread the convictions of the American people … this survey should remind political and cultural leaders that this debate is far from over. If anything, it is taking on a new sense of urgency for millions of men and women of faith.â€
Perkins, the president of the Family Research Council, added that the “vast majority of the GOP base continues to believe that marriage is a non-negotiable plank of the national platform and want to see their elected officials uphold natural marriage as the national standard, a goal to stand for, encourage and promote in law.â€
Of course, the poll is via a right-wing partisan pollster.
What once was a winning strategy lead by the religious right is quickly becoming a death knell.
Image of Tony Perkins via Family Research Council on Facebook