When many hear the term "Republican" used to describe someone, their minds tend to automatically jump to the idea of an ultra-religious, super conservative being who’s more concerned about the rights of an unconscious fetus than the rights of conscious men and women. This simply isn’t always the case. There seems to be a disconnect with people of all political orientation when it comes to the Republican Party.
There is a difference between the political party representation, Republican and Democrat — and the ideologies — liberal and conservative, in that a square is always a rectangle, but a rectangle is not always a square. By that, I mean someone who ideologically views everything from a conservative perspective tends to represent as a Republican; but not all Republicans view everything from a conservative perspective.
This has been the recent downfall of the Republican Party. With how today’s media works, the people with the loudest mouths are the ones who are heard the most. That doesn’t necessarily mean they have the most popular opinion. The media has a habit of taking the loudest person’s opinion and blanketing said opinion across the table, creating a stigma.
Another issue is the saturation of religion in politics. Religious people with conservative values have allowed their religion to cloud how they think about politics. Radical religious Republicans and Tea Party Patriots are notorious for attempting to limit the rights of others by citing religious reasons — which is actually completely counter-intuitive of what the Republican Party embodies.
Republicans are all about the limiting of the federal government. The smaller the government, the better. Republicans aren’t a fan of the government coming in and telling them what to do and how to live their lives. Yet, almost all of the party’s current stand points on social issues limit rights for certain parties. Views on instances like abortion and gay marriage limit the rights of people based on religious principals, disguised as political ideologies.
On Jan. 16, the Supreme Court announced they will be making a decision, by this June, on gay marriage. With 55 percent of the U.S. in support of gay marriage and with the precedent set on previous Supreme Court rulings, it is likely the Court will vote to legalize gay marriage. This would not only affect the 9th District, as their previous ruling, but the nation as a whole. While some Republicans are up in arms about this — going as far as calling it an overstep of the Federal Government — it’ll actually be a good thing for the GOP.
Ignoring the blatant fact that a majority of the nation is for the rights of gays to marry, the Supreme Court’s decision will lead the GOP one step closer to the original values it embodied of a smaller government. Since a true Republican believes in the smaller the government the better, a positive opinion on gay marriage is truly a Republican ideal. A decision will also take away one of the GOP’s more unpopular views.
The GOP, in recent years, has come under a lot of attack about their backward views when it came to social issues, like gay marriage. Being seen as stubborn and non-progessive, the GOP was constantly being slammed for it in the media. Politicians were often times berated by the public when they voiced their views on the subject (see Rick Perry). This will be one less negative talking point for the media to shred the party with, leading to an increase in the popularity of the party.
The legalization of gay marriage is one small step for the U.S. in the right direction of history, one giant leap for the Republican Party.
Reach the columnist at Derrik.Rochwalik@asu.edu or follow @drochwalik on Twitter
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Editor’s note: The opinions presented in this column are the author’s and do not imply any endorsement from The State Press or its editors.
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