Koering quits politics citing GOP swing to the right
Thursday, August 12, 2010 at 11:00 am
- 4 Comments
Minnesota’s only elected openly gay Republican is calling it quits following a primary loss on Tuesday. Koering was defeated by fellow Republican Paul Gazelka for the Minnesota Senate seat encompassing Brainerd. Koering, who came out in 2005, endured extreme pressure from national anti-gay groups as well as his own party in his bid to keep his Senate seat.
“The party that I’ve called home for 14 years has kind of, in essence, went off the cliff,” Koering told the St. Cloud Times. “I always tried to stay with the party to hopefully be a voice of reason within the party. But I found through this campaign that that doesn’t work anymore.”
The Republican Party of Minnesota launched a “witch hunt’ into Koering with the Morrison County Sheriff last month (Koering actually lives in Crow Wing County).
The party says that it is indeed moving to the right. Perry Nouis, chairman of the Morrison County Republican Party, told the Brainerd Dispatch, “Paul (Koering) is correct in saying the party has taken a turn to the right. After experimenting with bigger government and higher spending (we call it Democrat-lite) we recognize the need to return to our conservative principles.”
Koering says he will back the DFL candidate Taylor Stevenson in the November election.
It’s not the first time Koering has criticized the party. In his brief flirtation with a run for governor, Koering cited the reluctance of Republican delegates to support a LGBT person. “I didn’t really want to say that. [But] that’s a hurdle some delegates can’t get over,” he said late last year.
Another factor that would have likely stymied any campaign for governor was Koering’s disclosure in early June that he had dinner with a gay porn actor and had promised the young man that he would work to ensure that marriage equality passed in Minnesota.
That dinner became a campaign issue when the National Organization for Marriage sent out a mailer attacking Koering for supporting gay marriage. The mailer was so negative that even Koering’s GOP opponent condemned it.
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Comment posted August 12, 2010 @ 12:16 pm
“Paul (Koering) is correct in saying the party has taken a turn to the right. After experimenting with bigger government and higher spending (we call it Democrat-lite) we recognize the need to return to our conservative principles.” – Perry Nouis
Nice distortion, but Nouis knows that is not what Koering was talking about. The GOP has been redefining far-right on a regular basis for years. The fringe elements of a few years ago are now the mainstream of party officials. They are purging the last of the moderates and those willing to work with Democrats. They have introduced an ideological litmus test.
They align with hate groups. They employ propaganda on a massive scale, including hate speech.
They delude themselves to think they are the party of Lincoln. They only bear the name.
Comment posted August 12, 2010 @ 2:26 pm
I find it comical that anyone who opposes liberal views is a hate group. You use the term to appeal to peoples emotions with the hope it will keep them from using reason to come to conclusions about these issues. Your tactics are transparent to everyone but those that clearly don’t have the ability to think for themselves.
Comment posted August 12, 2010 @ 6:18 pm
Why was he a Republican to begin with? They hate the gays.
Comment posted August 15, 2010 @ 8:48 pm
Go back several decades and the religious right was railing against interracial marriage.
The Christian right always needs a class of people to stir up hatred against. A psychological tic of their seems to require the establishment of a permanent Other class–any group will do–some class of people against whom they can blame society’s problems and whip up their illiterate followers into a froth against.
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