POLITICO
by Mark McKinnon
June 1, 2015

Big business is bringing the GOP into the future

I’m not among those Republicans who have “evolved” on the issue of gay rights. I didn’t need to. I’ve always been attracted to the GOP message of more freedom and less government, but thought it hypocritical and counter to the core of our philosophy that Republicans would not apply those tenets to gay rights. But of course I was often the black sheep in campaign meetings during the 1990s and 2000s. There goes McKinnon again. Taking up for the gays. Although “gay” wasn’t the word that was used back then. Politically, while it once helped political parties to use gay rights to divide and score political points (and the GOP didn’t have a monopoly on the issue; remember it was Bill Clinton who signed the Defense of Marriage Act), the wedge issue has now lost its edge, even, I would argue, in the 2016 Republican presidential primary. READ MORE