Last week’s controversy surrounding the ousting of the Duke College Republicans’ chairman, Justin Robinette, sent red flags flying all over the place.
From Independent Weekly to the Huffington Post, allegations that the young Republican had been outed, ousted and barraged with hate speech sent bloggers reeling.
We will probably never know for sure whether or not the allegations brought against Robinette were true or if they warranted impeachment.
However, to me it is clear that the fact that he is gay was, on some level, an impetus for the board to act to impeach him.
Regardless of the unproven facts and allegations in Robinette’s case, the elephant in the room is, well, the fact that there was an elephant in the room — a gay elephant.
Homosexuality and conservatism, when mixed together, create an unfortunate political stench that attracts media like fat children to a candy store.
Gay Republicans are reviled by their party’s base and typically depicted by the mainstream media as odd, self-loathing political enigmas.
That’s not to say all Republicans are homophobes, or that all liberals are gay-friendly.
However, the Republicans are the ones who remain at fault and contradictory by nature of their ideology.
The fact that the Republican Party, the party that is supposed to champion the values of limited government and individual liberty, supports the denial of a certain group’s rights based on sexual orientation is incongruous to say the least.
Unfortunately, the old-school, socially conservative camp still holds the reins. The fiscally conservative, Reagan-esque ideology that keeps moderate Republicans, like myself, loyal to the party remains alienated.
Hopefully, our generation, which I believe has moved on and above discriminatory ideology, will return the Republican Party to its roots.
But last week’s ordeal over at Duke dampens that hope. Controversies similar to Robinette’s fuel the fire of the social conservative wing that uses anti-gay rhetoric to rouse our party’s ignorant base.
Society is moving on. If young Republicans can’t return the party to its core values of personal liberty and embrace moderates and the gay community, then it will surely die out along with the older generations before us.
Patrick Fleming is a senior economics and journalism major from Wilson. E-mail him at pflem@email.unc.edu
