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I'm not confident of that at all. Deal ran one of the most disgusting anti-gay campaigns ever to get the Republican nomination for governor.
Exactly, atltechdude, as those of us with long memories know that Deal did do just that! As he and Karen Handel positioned themselves against each other in seeking the GOP nomination to run for governor, their campaigns filled the air waves with a disgusting abundance of ads that were anti gay.
FYI: I responded to what Markinmidtown wrote here with a comment I just posted on the related thread that is titled "NCAA will boycott...".
Location: Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, and Raleigh
2,580 posts, read 2,498,453 times
Reputation: 1614
Quote:
Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll
Actually, I think that they were anticipating the pushback to this bill and wanted the pushback to this bill so that they could grandstand in front of their constituents during an election year.
This high-profile pushback against these controversial religious liberty bills gives these legislators the opportunity to look like they are fighting for the socially conservative values of their socially conservative constituents in some deeply conservative areas of the state (in many, if not most, areas of the state outside the I-285 Perimeter) where Religious Liberty and pushing back against same-sex marriage and declining religiosity in society is a major issue.
Religious Liberty and the marriage issue (not just same-sex marriage, but marriage, period) is a major issue that really resounds with much of the electorate outside of the I-285 Perimeter and particularly outside of the five-county core of the Atlanta metro region....Which is one major reason why Georgia's supermajority Republican lawmakers fill compelled to push this type of controversial legislation in an election year.
The religious liberty/marriage issue energizes socially conservative voters and gives Republican legislators the opportunity to showcase to voters their conservative bonafides in a state with a deeply conservative electorate.
However, it always blows up in the end in social conservatives' faces. Political calculation should always include all outcomes including a backlash from the ideological opponents. This will just galvanize the non-natives and socially progressive and moderate natives to turn out against the Georgia Republicans. Don't ever push people into a corner because retaliation is the most unexpected consequence of half-assed political calculation during an election year.
I will probably get an infarction for typing this but I think a church has every right to refuse to wed same sex partners. And if they do then go find someplace that does. They already approved same sex marriages...when will the gay community be satisfied?
Churches don't have to marry anyone. This is a nonissue. Nobody is pushing for that to happen.
Period. When will you be satisfied?
"NCAA will boycot because if GA passes discrimination bill"
That is not at all what this article says.
Quote:
Threats of a boycott erupted. Hometown businesses threatened to relocate. Industry recruiting prospects shuddered. The NCAA, which is headquartered in the Hoosier State, said it would consider moving Final Four tournaments scheduled there for 2016 and 2021.
The NCAA threatened to relocate the (Women's) Final Four for 2016 and (Men's) Final Four 2021 from Indianapolis.
Guess what happened? Nothing.
The 2016 Women's Final Four is still being played in Indianapolis this April.
The 2016 Men's Final Four is still being played in Houston. There was much pressure put on the NCAA to move the event after similar legislation was passed, but eventually didn't. NCAA says it will not move men's Final Four out of Houston - Outsports
So, just to clarify: the NCAA hasn't made any threats about boycotting or relocating upcoming events scheduled to be played in Georgia. And, in cases where they have made such threats, they haven't actually followed through. So I'm not sure how seriously GA lawmakers will take any blustering by the NCAA regarding the current bill.
"NCAA will boycot because if GA passes discrimination bill"
That is not at all what this article says.
The NCAA threatened to relocate the (Women's) Final Four for 2016 and (Men's) Final Four 2021 from Indianapolis.
Guess what happened? Nothing.
The 2016 Women's Final Four is still being played in Indianapolis this April.
The 2016 Men's Final Four is still being played in Houston. There was much pressure put on the NCAA to move the event after similar legislation was passed, but eventually didn't. NCAA says it will not move men's Final Four out of Houston - Outsports
So, just to clarify: the NCAA hasn't made any threats about boycotting or relocating upcoming events scheduled to be played in Georgia. And, in cases where they have made such threats, they haven't actually followed through. So I'm not sure how seriously GA lawmakers will take any blustering by the NCAA regarding the current bill.
Ummm...YOU FORGOT ONE IMPORTANT FACT...
The threat of the boycott caused the Governor of Indiana to change the bill adding LGBT non-discrimination language which gutted the intended purpose of the original legislation.
So you are wrong...the threat of boycotts WORKED! Those that did leave the state, regardless of the change cost the state $60 million dollars. The others did not need to follow through on threats because the Indiana government did the right thing and changed the law, essentially creating statewide civil rights protections for the Indiana LGBT community.
Location: Atlanta, Birmingham, Charlotte, and Raleigh
2,580 posts, read 2,498,453 times
Reputation: 1614
Quote:
Originally Posted by atler8
Great question Arjay...
The answer is that that is what the Repiublicans who completely took over the running of our state excel at doing... i.e. getting up in people's lives & personal business when it does not fit their "family values" mantra of preaching.
I nearly fell off of my chair yesterday when I saw a post on a thread related to the topic of this one and the person wrote that they had tended to vote "R" for the last 30 years because Republicans were more likely to be for personal rights.
I thought to myself, "What the heck are they talking about?" Conversely for me, in the last 30 years, the Georgia & national Republicans have driven me AWAY by getting more tied into movements that try to divide Americans through their legislation on behalf of "family values" stuff. I mean, who in the heck's standards for "family values" are the CORRECT ones & the ones that we should be using as base standards for legislation.
We can thank old Newt Gingrich for really popularizing "family values" back in the 1990's in the midst of his own dilly-dallying around in between his 2nd & 3rd marriages.
Myopia is a funny thing. That is why I stopped pitying myopic individuals when it comes to political ideology years ago. You cannot be playing with the full deck and not see that (white) (patriarchal) "family values" is the main reason why this nation has been the butt of reductive societal jokes on the global front for nearly 3 decades.
The threat of the boycott caused the Governor of Indiana to change the bill adding LGBT non-discrimination language which gutted the intended purpose of the original legislation.
So you are wrong...the threat of boycotts WORKED! Those that did leave the state, regardless of the change cost the state $60 million dollars. The others did not need to follow through on threats because the Indiana government did the right thing and changed the law, essentially creating statewide civil rights protections for the Indiana LGBT community.
Selectively leaving out important facts makes everything you say look suspicious.
Here is an important fact you forgot:
The NCAA announced they'd leave the 2015 NCAA Final Four in Indy before the law was amended. Selectively ignoring how calendars work makes everything you say look suspicious.
The Indiana RFRA was passed on March 26th.
The NCAA made an announcement about keeping the 2015 Final Four in Indy on March 30th.
The Indiana RFRA was amended with non discrimination language on April 2nd.
So, before all those additional protections you mention were added, they had already decided they didn't care enough to move the event on short order. Same thing happened in Houston. They talk big, but at the end of the day it's incredibly difficult to relocate these events, especially on short order.
Here is an important fact you forgot:
The NCAA announced they'd leave the 2015 NCAA Final Four in Indy before the law was amended. Selectively ignoring how calendars work makes everything you say look suspicious.
The Indiana RFRA was passed on March 26th.
The NCAA made an announcement about keeping the 2015 Final Four in Indy on March 30th.
The Indiana RFRA was amended with non discrimination language on April 2nd.
So, before all those additional protections you mention were added, they had already decided they didn't care enough to move the event on short order. Same thing happened in Houston. They talk big, but at the end of the day it's incredibly difficult to relocate these events, especially on short order.
Why would they make good on a THREAT when the legislation in its original form DID NOT PASS? Do you really think the Governor did not personally intervene? The law was in the headlines under tremendous pressure when the NCAA made the announcement to stay. We all knew the law would be changed. I certainly don't want to do the same that I am accusing you of doing but I think I make a good case for the NCAA's decision.
But by all means, continue to deny the impact the boycotts will have. Every day new companies are proving you wrong. Check out the latest organization joining the fight.
Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll Republican legislators are not necessarily just trying to legislate their way to getting high turnout as much as they are trying to placate the very conservative base voters who most often make up the overwhelming majority of voters in the Republican primaries that often decide the general election, particularly in most areas outside of the I-285 Perimeter.
Republican legislators fear these very conservative base voters more than they fear the general electorate because these very conservative base voters are most often the voters who show up to vote no matter what (rain, sleet, snow, etc), particularly when energized with red meat-type legislation like the religious liberty bills up for consideration.
Because the larger general electorate in a Deep South state like Georgia is most often decidedly conservative and right-of-center, these politicians know that they will most likely have very little (if any) resistance after they make it through the primary. Most lawmakers in Georgia's Republican supermajority often have either no Democratic opposition or just token Democratic opposition in the general election....Which is why their election strategy is often aimed squarely placating the deeply conservative voters who dominate the Republican primary process....Because they will often face very little (if any) opposition after getting through the Republican primary.
Because very conservative voters basically decide the general election in the primary is the reason why we see this red meat type of legislation aimed at placating and energizing very conservative primary voters in every even-numbered year when elections are held in Georgia and most other states.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jero23
All that short-term thinking does is guarantee a major loss in the general election. This is how you know when a group is amateurish in thinking on political calculation because this stunt is the first underestimation of politics.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Born 2 Roll
Actually, I think that they were anticipating the pushback to this bill and wanted the pushback to this bill so that they could grandstand in front of their constituents during an election year.
This high-profile pushback against these controversial religious liberty bills gives these legislators the opportunity to look like they are fighting for the socially conservative values of their socially conservative constituents in some deeply conservative areas of the state (in many, if not most, areas of the state outside the I-285 Perimeter) where Religious Liberty and pushing back against same-sex marriage and declining religiosity in society is a major issue.
Religious Liberty and the marriage issue (not just same-sex marriage, but marriage, period) is a major issue that really resounds with much of the electorate outside of the I-285 Perimeter and particularly outside of the five-county core of the Atlanta metro region....Which is one major reason why Georgia's supermajority Republican lawmakers fill compelled to push this type of controversial legislation in an election year.
The religious liberty/marriage issue energizes socially conservative voters and gives Republican legislators the opportunity to showcase to voters their conservative bonafides in a state with a deeply conservative electorate.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jero23
However, it always blows up in the end in social conservatives' faces. Political calculation should always include all outcomes including a backlash from the ideological opponents. This will just galvanize the non-natives and socially progressive and moderate natives to turn out against the Georgia Republicans. Don't ever push people into a corner because retaliation is the most unexpected consequence of half-assed political calculation during an election year.
One of the problems with the current political setup where politicians in the Republican supermajority in the Georgia legislature and state government have to pander to the far right-of-center to stay in power is that there is no risk of backlash in the form of serious threats of losses in the general election for politicians who push forth this type of highly controversial and potentially economically damaging legislation.
The Georgia Democratic Party (officially known as the Democratic Party of Georgia) is at a severe structural and organization disadvantage in Georgia statewide politics and just simply does not have anywhere near the organizational strength to turnout enough progressive voters and appeal to enough moderate voters to electorally respond to these types of risky political stunts in the general election.
Despite the exploding population of potential moderate and progressive voters in traditional conservative Republican suburban strongholds like Gwinnett and Cobb counties, the Democratic Party has virtually no countywide organizational presence in Gwinnett and Cobb counties....That's even though the Democrats have made noticeable gains in both of those traditional rock-ribbed Republican strongholds with virtually little to no countywide organization or presence in those two counties where the continued population gains are trending definitively and decisively in favor of the Democratic Party.
In suburban counties like majority-minority Gwinnett and minority and moderate/progressive-trending Cobb and beyond, Republican lawmakers are gerrymandered into near-supermajority Republican voter-dominated commission, legislative and congressional districts where the toughest election challenges most often come from the hard-right in GOP primaries.
At this point in time, most of Georgia's supermajority Republican lawmakers are most worried about being challenged from their right or hard-right in a Republican primary then they are worried about being challenged from their left a general election where many (if not most) Republican lawmakers often run virtually unopposed or literally unopposed....This is one major reason why we see much legislation (like controversial election year illegal immigration, abortion or religious liberty bills) that is geared squarely at getting politicians through the decisively right-leaning politics of a GOP primary and not the more moderate/centrist politics of a general election.
Though the Republican Party has retreated from the peak strength it enjoyed in counties like Gwinnett and Cobb in the mid-late 2000's, very few, if any, credible challenges to Republican supermajority legislators or continued Republican rule comes from the left (center-right, center or left-of-center) in Republican-controlled county commission, state legislative or federal congressional districts in major suburban counties like Gwinnett and Cobb.
This is certain to change over the next 10-15 years as population gains in major suburban counties like Gwinnett and Cobb continue to trend most heavily in the direction of the Democrats. Though, for the time being (about the next 5-10 years or so) Republicans will continue to hold onto their dominance in major suburban counties like Gwinnett and Cobb.
If the Democratic Party can continue to grow in strength on the important gains it made during the 2014 election cycle when it collected 45% of the vote in the gubernatorial election (a big accomplishment in a state like Georgia where the GOP controls over two-thirds of all legislative and congressional seats and holds all statewide offices), the party will potentially become competitive enough to contend for a statewide office by the end of the decade and may potentially become competitive enough to win some statewide offices, move towards parity by taking a chunk out of the Republican legislative majority and force to Republicans to run more towards the center and less towards the hard-right by the middle of the next decade (the mid-2020's or so).
Had breakfast with Rep. Bennett today. He is pretty certain this bill will die. He said the vast majority of reps (even among republicans) are opposed to it. Also, the corporate leadership of Atlanta is very engaged, and the Chamber of Commerce has been hammering for it to die.
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