Did the GOP Kill Prop. 8?

COMMENTARY: I despise it when someone has a victim mentality; it annoys me to no end. Those who know this about me also know that I believe government should not be in the marriage business, as I believe that marriage is a religious institution and that gay and straight couples should both be allowed to have civil unions as opposed to marriage.

With that said, I think that it is ridiculous that so many gays love to hold up banners and scream "Separation of church and state!" but in the next breath ask the government to sanction marriage, a religious institution. This is a clear contradiction and, in my personal opinion, an uneducated and hypocritical statement.

One hundred percent of the legislative process in the United States Congress has been controlled by Democrats since 2007. The Democrats have had a monopoly on both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government since 2009. During this time the Democrats -- who are considered by many gays to be the sole defenders and tireless advocates of their rights -- failed to pass a marriage equality bill or repeal of Bill Clinton's "don't ask, don't tell" policy, despite having a supermajority in the United States Senate.

In California from 1999 to 2003, Democrats controlled the state legislature, and there was a Democratic governor, Gray Davis. During this time marriage equality legislation was not made law and upheld in California.

To the present time, many gay rights activists are comfortable dumping millions of dollars into the campaign war chests of Democrats running for office -- Equality California, the Human Rights Campaign, and other so-called nonpartisan gay organizations -- and they have nothing to show for it. Talk about a bad, fraudulent investment.

Pro-gay groups organize gays and lesbians (many of whom are not even registered to vote) at events and other platforms for action to vilify Republicans, who are the minority party in Sacramento and Washington, D.C., and have no meaningful control over the legislative process. These organizations, their affiliates, and their members have carried on relentless business boycotts during this long economic recession. They have punished many Americans, directly and indirectly, who simply exercised their freedom to vote, a universal right that many of these vigilantes refuse to use themselves. Instead, they prefer others to carry their water for them, so to speak.

While I cautiously cast my vote in 2008 against Proposition 8 based on my constitutional and Jeffersonian principles, I have still been attacked simply because I am a proud Republican and refuse to apologize for my pro-American values. I would hope that Barney Frank and Jared Polis are enraged by this baseless hatred and discrimination, as they have both gone on the record stating that equality will never be achieved without Republican support.

Gays need to wake up! Republicans have led the way in equality and diversity for most of our nation's life. It was Republican congresswoman Ileana Ros-Lehtinen of Florida who first introduced a bill to repeal DADT. Democrats refused to bring her bill up for a vote. It is the Log Cabin Republicans who are challenging DADT. It was President George W. Bush who appointed, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice who swore in, an openly gay AIDS czar. It was President George W. Bush who passed and signed into law record funding for AIDS research. It was Alaska governor Sarah Palin whose first veto as governor allowed same-sex couples working for the state to receive benefits equal to those of married couples. It was President Ronald Reagan who originally nominated Vaughn Walker to the federal bench in 1987. It was Democratic congresswoman (now speaker of the House) Nancy Pelosi who led a group of two dozen House Democrats to oppose his nomination because they claimed that Judge Walker harbored "insensitivity" toward gays and poor people. It was President George H.W. Bush who appointed Judge Vaughn Walker to his current position on the federal bench, where he serves as one of only two openly gay federal judges.

Republican-appointed and Democrat-opposed Judge Walker overturned California's Proposition 8 last week after Democrats failed to protect the Republican-dominated California supreme court's ruling that same-sex marriage was constitutional in California. A Republican-dominated California state supreme court granted same-sex couples marriage equality. A Democratic election year and Obama voters took away that right in 2008 at the ballot box. A Republican-appointed federal judge restored that right. (Do you see a pattern?)

To those who have been a part of this counterproductive counterculture led by Obama, Pelosi, Harry Reid, and Jerry Brown: My only hope is that you finally exercise accountability and acceptance of reality when you exercise your reinstated constitutional rights.

Stop the reverse discrimination. Stop the hatred. Promote businesses, not boycotts. Let us all now join together and focus on what really matters in this next election: jobs, jobs, jobs. And, like equality, only one party has a specific plan to make this happen. It is the party that made last week's victory possible.