Georgia GOP’s Genital Obsession

By Edward Hudgins

April 9, 2014 - The Georgia GOP leader is working to turn the Republican state Democratic again with her idiotic obsession with her neighbors’ genitals.

The party’s state chair, Sue Everhart, said “Lord, I’m going to get in trouble over this [she got that right!], but it is not natural for two women or two men to be married,” adding that “If it was natural, they would have the equipment to have a sexual relationship.”

As if her concern for other peoples’ “equipment” weren’t bad enough, she went on to explain what she considers a true dangers of same-sex unions:

“You may be as straight as an arrow, and you may have a friend that is as straight as an arrow. Say you had a great job with the government where you had this wonderful health plan. I mean, what would prohibit you from saying that you’re gay, and y’all get married and still live as separate, but you get all the benefits? I just see so much abuse in this it’s unreal. I believe a husband and a wife should be a man and a woman, the benefits should be for a man and a woman. There is no way that this is about equality. To me, it’s all about a free ride.”

Are you serious? I might ask if there’s an epidemic today of hetero friends staging such sham marriages for better benefits since they currently face that temptation.

In any case, let’s put Everhart’s silly scenario in political context. Georgia Republicans are going into a primary to select a candidate to run for Senate to replace a retiring Republican Saxby Chambliss. The Democratic nominee will likely be is Michelle Nunn, the daughter of popular former Senator Sam Nunn. Already one of the leading GOPers, U.S. Congressman Paul Broun, has shown himself a fool by loudly denouncing “evolution, embryology, big bang theory” and most of modern science. This ignoramus sits on the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. And now we have Everhart reinforcing the image of the Republican Party as a bunch of yahoos, making a Democratic Senate victory that much more probable.

Even if Miss Peach State or the GOP Senatorial hopefuls hold whacky beliefs, they need to shut up about them and worry about getting their own priorities straight rather than worrying about whether their neighbors are straight. Obama and his cronies are growing government control over every aspect of our lives and these are the issues that these Republicans spout off about?

This is why the Republican Party needs to go through a radical realignment. The legal and personal relationships that consenting adults make with one another, and which in no way limit the liberty of others, are none of the government’s business. Extreme social conservatives who won’t get with the limited government GOP program should leave the party.

If the GOP is to win elections in the future, it must become a modernist party that consistently stands for individual liberty. It must attract new constituents, especially young people looking for futures full of opportunities and the new entrepreneurs who understand the power of the human mind to create such better futures. And this means shedding the likes of Everhart.
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Hudgins is director of advocacy and a senior scholar at The Atlas Society.

For further information:

*Edward Hudgins, The Republican Party’s Civil War: Will Freedom Win? February 2014.

*Edward Hudgins, “GOP Helps North Carolina, Georgia Democrats Win.” March 18, 2014