Republican "Big Tent" About to Blow Down?

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that pro-choice Republicans are uniting with the gay Republican Log Cabin group to mount a challenge to the anti-gay, anti-abortion Republican platform, only asking that the platform reflect reality ... and simply declare that "Republicans of good faith disagree" on family issues.

Log Cabin Republicans (who, incidentally, were barred from having a contact table at the North Carolina Republican convention) and Republicans for Choice were supposed to hold a press conference today to discuss their strategy for forcing the "big tent" idea on the hypocrites who claim they practice it.

"We are giving President Bush an opportunity for a Sister Souljah moment," said Christopher Barron, political director of the Log Cabin Republicans. "This is an opportunity for the president to make clear that the GOP is a big tent. If there's room in the party for free-traders and protectionists, they've got to make room for us." Sister Souljah? You know, El Presidente standing up to Jerry Falwell and the other jihadists on the right, saying something like, "Listen, Beloved, shouldn't we welcome our gay Republican brethren into this party and stop identifying women as involuntary breeders in our no-abortion-for-no-reason-no-way party platform?"

Yeah, that could happen! The president who decided a few weeks ago to make a constitutional amendment barring equal rights to gays a big campaign issue is suddenly gonna change his direction!

"...the Log Cabin Republicans are marshaling their voting power and strategies to bolster their cause. If the platform committee, which meets the week before the convention, rejects their plank, they hope to collect enough signatures from six state delegations to force a fight on the floor -- a prospect convention planners dread. The proposed unity plank states: 'We recognize and respect that Republicans of good faith may not agree with all the planks in the party's platform. This is particularly the case with regard to those planks dealing with abortion, family planning, and gay and lesbian issues. The Republican Party welcomes all people on all sides of these complex issues and encourages their active participation as we work together on those issues upon which we agree.' "

Does the following sound big-tentish to you? "In one recent example of the White House commitment to ideological unanimity on abortion, campaign workers evicted a woman and her family from a Bush rally because she was carrying a rolled-up T-shirt with an abortion-rights slogan."

"Our constituents are ready to walk [out on this election]," said Ann Stone, founder and chairwoman of Republicans for Choice, a political action committee with 150,000 members which has joined forces with the Log Cabin Republicans. "Our message to the president is: 'Stay out of the bedroom.' "

"But I like to watch!" whines El Presidente. Or maybe it was John Ashcroft.