Treason

A great example of how some far right-wingers view dissent as treachery (and yes, many left-wing extremists have the same mentality).

The New York State GOP voted to give the Log Cabin Republicans group a seat on the state's executive committee. Log Cabin Republicans is a group that advocates pro-gay rights positions within the GOP.

State Sen. Stephen Maltese told the Associated Press that he feels a group shouldn't be given special treatment based strictly on sexual orientation. The conservative Republican also says Log Cabin Republicans were disloyal to the party for criticizing President Bush during last year's election for his opposition to same-sex marriages.

Now, I don't want to get into the issue of gay marriage per se. But the wording was quite revealing. Sen. Maltese didn't simply say that Log Cabin criticism of Bush was wrong or misguided. He didn't simply say that Log Cabin's position on gay marriage was a bad idea. If he'd limited his criticism to the content of Log Cabin's positions, it would've been fine. Instead, he said that the criticism was disloyal. DISLOYAL.

Log Cabin endorsed President Bush in 2000 after he spoke to the organization and led them to believe he would be friendly to, or at least not comtemptous of, gay rights issues. He obviously betrayed them in his first term to pander to a larger constituency. Fine. That's politics. But actions have consequences.

It would've been absolutely ludicrous of Log Cabin to endorse him in 2004. For a gay rights' organization to endorse a man who'd gone out of his way to pander to least common denominator homophobia would've rendered Log Cabin's endorsement meaningless.

Excluding Log Cabin for a GOP party committee might've been more justifiable if the group had actually endorsed or actively campagined for John Kerry or one of Bush's other opponents... like Democrat Sen. Zell Miller did for Bush. But they simply refused to endorse a candidate that had shown himself overtly hostile to their vision for the country.

According to Sen. Maltese, Log Cabiners should've placed a higher premium on loyalty to the person of Mr. Bush than to their perception of what's in the best interest of the nation.

Then again, this is precisely the style of governance preferred by the Bush administration itself, so it's not that surprising that some local party hacks are trying the same strategy. I will give a rare tip of the cap to the NYS GOP as a whole for actually doing the right thing.