A Sign of the Times

For those who are not aware, there was another debate in the race for the Republican nomination for the presidency last night which took place in the Reagan Library (I guess it's their version of the Vatican). This pretty much sums up the debate:

I may have missed the first 30 minutes of the debate, but I think this video sums up the GOP field. They're all for cutting taxes for the rich, they all say they're all better than Obama (that was not a typo), a couple of them are against public education, and Ron Paul thinks the TSA is molesting everyone (which is only partially true).

There was a glaring hole in this Republican debate though: there was not a word mentioned about LGBT equality. Not same-sex marriage, Don't Ask Don't tell, employment non-discrimination (ENDA), or anything else. Not a word on social issues (including abortion if memory serves). Again I missed the first half hour, but from the hour plus that I did see in addition to post-game summations, there was nothing on LGBT issues. It should be noted that the moderators never asked questions about these subjects. Even so, many times when a candidate feels strongly about something, they will bring it up even if that is not what they were asked about. We know from the record that many of these candidates feel strongly about these issues, generally against them.

Granted, LGBT issues are not what most people are focused on in these hard economic times. Most people want to hear about what a candidate will do to improve the jobs climate. However, this has not stopped most of the candidate featured last night from talking about marriage, DADT, and others while going around the early caucus/primary states.

Given all of that, why did these subjects never come up in last night's debate?

There may be many opinions as to why these issues didn't come up. My personal opinion is that perhaps the candidates are finally catching wise to the fact that it is getting increasingly difficult to win on political gay-bashing . With a report out earlier this year saying that a majority of people in America favour at least some form of legal recognition of same-sex couples, this means that it will be harder for Republicans to win a general election while campaigning against gay people. The tide is turning and the political right sees the signs. It's one thing I supposed when you're on the stump surrounded with people you know already agree with you (even if there are cameras there that may get a national audience). I guess it is different when you're on a major network trying to win millions of people over and suddenly, the discriminatory parts of your stump speech may be more of a liability.

While this is definitely a good thing (though we have yet to see in future debates if this holds), it should come with a word of warning. When someone is running for public office, they may not bring up where they stand on issues of equality. This means they have to be asked, perhaps pressed if necessary, on where they stand on these issues. Of course we cannot assume that someone is either for or against gay rights, regardless of what party they are affiliated with. We have to keep questioning these people who seek to lead to make sure that they are not leading us into being a nation that treats people as second-class citizens.

Also, and this is not at all a joke, I completely forgot that Newt Gingrich was still in the race until last night. That is how irrelevant he is.