By David Zuniga
The editorial “Republicans in the Closet,” published last week by Chronicle columnist Matthew Romano, berates “closeted” gay Republicans for their alleged hypocrisy, brazenly asserting that unlike the Democratic politicians who have not come out of the closet, “the closeted Republicans are against all gay rights.”
Mr. Romano makes it quite clear that he is no fan of the Republican Party in his derisive opening remarks, and it is reasonable to infer that he is among our friends on the left. The irony of this all is that he, in fact, is putting on a grand display of hypocrisy by citing tenuous accounts of Republican homophobia that are often feebly founded on hearsay (as in the case of former Florida GOP governor Charlie Christ) or an excerpted voting records.
In the process, he is painting and smearing the Republican Party with broad strokes as anti-gay, prejudiced, and intolerant, lending a false credence to the stereotypes.The generalizations put forth in the article do an injustice to us all by perpetuating the left’s scripted image of the GOP, blinding the masses with its sly rhetoric.
Ultimately, he fails to accurately portray the righteous beliefs and convictions of many of its constituents, especially groups such as the Log Cabin Republicans, a grassroots organization that “works to build a stronger, more inclusive Republican Party by promoting the core values of limited government, individual liberty, personal responsibility, free markets and a strong national defense while advocating for the freedom and equality of gay and lesbian Americans.”
A more inclusive GOP is the future of the GOP that we the Hofstra University College Republicans seek to bring about, in addition to fighting the juvenile claims that all republicans fit within a certain mold. We are not anti-gay, anti-immigrant, or bigoted. We believe that “all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights…”
We will fight to secure the freedoms and liberties of all the citizens of the United States of America. Make no mistake, that is our duty, and that is our deed.
