From this Observer story about how Democrats finally managed to put a stake through Rep. Cecil Bell’s awful anti-same-sex-marriage-license bill, comes word of the legislative preference that dare not speak its name:
[Rep. Jason] Villalba’s statements were a clear reminder that it wasn’t just Democrats who killed anti-LGBT proposals. And they were another sign of evolution, albeit glacially slow, on LGBT issues within the Republican caucus—punctuated by Rep. Sarah Davis (R-West University Place), who last week came out in support of same-sex marriage.
“I think of the 93 members of the House that signed the letter, I think if you had private conversations with them, a significant number of them would feel like I do,” Villalba said. “I’m not ready to go on record saying that I support marriage yet, like Sarah has. Sarah was very brave and courageous to do that. I think she feels confident that she represents her district well. I’m not certain that my district feels that way yet, and I also believe this decision is not going to be within our hands.”
Rep. Rafael Anchia (D-Dallas) said at times during the session, he felt as though it was his freshman year in 2005, when he served on a small floor team of Democrats working unsuccessfully to defeat the state’s marriage amendment.
“I thought the Republicans had sort of played out the anti-gay thing, because we hadn’t seen it for a couple of sessions,” Anchia said. “It’s clear that public opinion is moving away from them rapidly. This feels like a desperate last gasp to pander to the most hateful elements of the Republican primary electorate.”
Nevertheless, Anchia acknowledged that when members of his party worked to defeat anti-LGBT bills, they sometimes did so with the quiet encouragement of Republicans—both “moderate” and “not-so-moderate.”
“I can’t tell you how many members of the House have come up to me and said, ‘Will y’all please kill these bills, Democrats? Because we don’t feel good about them,’” Anchia said. “The reality is there are many Republican members of this Legislature who have gay children, gay siblings, who may be gay themselves but are just not out. As a result, they understand firsthand how hateful this legislation is.”
One often hears of these mythical Republican legislators, who are – to some measure, at least – secretly not anti-gay, or even anti-abortion. Doesn’t mean that they’re pro-equality or pro-choice in any fashion you or I would recognize, but they do have a limited appetite for tightening the screws any further than they already are. It’s just that they can’t admit to any of that in public, lest they be tarred and feathered by the howling fanatics who vote in the Republican primary elections. So they hide in the closet, their existence hinted at by the likes of Rep. Anchia, while the rest of us are left to speculate about their existence like some History Channel “expert”. Maybe this is who those American Phoenix Foundation yahoos have been hunting for. Anyway, I for one would like to know some names. I am sure that more than a few of them would surprise me. Feel free to speculate irresponsibly in the comments.
But the President and the previous Democratic President were like that for a long time, too. Granted, they were not outspoken against SSM, but officially, they were against it.
I’m glad people are starting to feel like it’s politically safe to do the right thing.
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