Gary Bauer Says Minorities Are Leaving His 'Coalition for Normal Marriage'

Immediately after Republicans failed to take the White House or the Senate and lost seats in the House, religious right mouthpiece Gary Bauer claimed in interviews that the party just wasn't antigay enough to win.

But now he seems to be revising his post-election analysis ever so slightly.

During the most recent election, Bauer led a PAC called the Campaign for Working Families, and he said during an interview on CNN's State of the Union that to win Hispanic voters, Republicans couldn't drop their opposition to marriage equality.

Repeated national polls, plus exit polling showed that Hispanic voters overwhelmingly support marriage equality. Still, Bauer claimed, "There's been research done on Hispanic voters on what motivates them. ... The research also shows that Hispanics are overwhelmingly pro-life and pro-family. You're suggesting that we drop issues that we might have the best chance to appeal to those voters about."

But now ThinkProgress points out that Bauer claims President Obama has so drastically reshaped the political landscape with his own support for marriage equality that it might not be a winning issue.

"The coalition in favor of normal marriage has been made up of political conservatives and American minority groups, including Hispanics and blacks," Bauer told LifeSiteNews. "But the president's so-called 'evolution' on this issue has resulted in what appears to be a major shift among blacks and Hispanics toward favoring same-sex marriage."

But Bauer isn't calling for his party to change. Just the opposite: he predicts the GOP will remain opposed to marriage equality come 2016 and that the platform will continue its staunch antigay language.

Bauer, who now runs an anti-marriage equality group called American Values, said the fight has to be made by churches, not political parties.

"It's a mistake to expect political parties to have the main responsibility in winning cultural and moral debates," he said. "Parties surrender on things when it's being lost outside of politics. Right now you have a lot of confusion in the church, a lot of people who won't speak up about things, a lot of religious leaders that are avoiding the issue. I don't think we can expect the Republican Party to save us when even the church won't do it."