The splintered GOP sideshow

Evangelical voters just can’t decide which candidate to support among the menagerie of Republican presidential wannabes. And that news couldn’t be better for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender Americans.

The most recent example of this took place last weekend at the Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. Mainstream headlines coming out of the gathering basically said the same thing. As the New York Times put it, “Religious Right Divides Its Vote.” And the more divided the anti-gay right is, the less power they have to control the political agenda.

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani leads among Republicans in national polls, but so-called “Values Voters” don’t trust him. In fact, he placed next to last in the summit’s straw poll – the only candidate to do worse was Arizona Sen. John McCain.

Christian conservatives say Giuliani has hijacked the GOP. And many are still threatening an independent third-party candidate – a move that would certainly divide the right-wing vote.

Along the way, Giuliani has angered moderates and left-leaning supporters for backing away from his support of issues like civil unions for same-sex couples and gun control.

So it seems unlikely that right-wing voters believe him when he says, as he did at the summit, “Isn’t it better that I tell you what I really believe, instead of pretending to change all of my positions to fit the political wind?” Well, yes, if he actually didn’t change his positions.

How little do Christian conservatives trust Giuliani? In response to his promise to appoint “strict constructionist” judges to the Supreme Court – a not-so-veiled reference to anti-Roe v. Wade judges – Southern Baptist Convention president Richard Land told the media, “He also promised two previous wives that he would love, honor and cherish them, until death do us part.” Ouch!

Fred Thompson, the former Tennessee senator and “Law & Order” actor, was supposed to be the savior of the right. But he’s been a dud. James Dobson, the powerful head of anti-gay Focus on the Family, wrote of Thompson in an email that was leaked to the media: “He won’t talk at all about what he believes, can’t speak his way out of a paper bag. He has no passion, no zeal, no apparent ‘want to,’ yet he is apparently the great hope that burns in the breasts of many conservative Christians? Well, not for me, my brothers, not for me.”

Then there’s former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who has flip-flopped on issues ranging from abortion to gay civil rights to health care. As Log Cabin Republicans points out in a recent television ad, Romney had very different positions when he ran for office in the Bay State than he does now that he is kowtowing to the anti-gay right.

Between Romney’s changing positions and his Mormon faith, many evangelicals question his commitment to their so-called values.

Many social conservatives seem impressed with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who is also a Baptist minister. He even placed second in the summit’s straw poll, bested only by Romney whose supporters basically bought enough votes to place first.

But many evangelicals don’t think Huckabee can win either the Republican nomination or the general election, so support for him is tentative. To Huckabee’s credit, despite a conservative agenda, he speaks in a respectful way that is reminiscent of the McCain of the 2000 campaign (as opposed to the McCain of the current campaign, who sold out his principles to ingratiate himself with the Bushes and the radical right).

Compare Huckabee to, say, U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado. He won praise during his speech at the summit when he said the Republican Party “needs a leader who is opposed to abortion not because Iowa caucus-goers are opposed to abortion but because the Lord said, ‘I knew you before you were in the womb.’” These voters may like what they hear from candidates like Tancredo, but pragmatic evangelicals know that such heated rhetoric will not win the White House.

So let the fractured anti-gay movement deal with its own indecision. In the meantime, the GLBT community must make the most of this moment when the enemy is most divided.