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Gay Wired: L.A. Vess - McCain Won’t Oppose Gay Marriage, Because He’s a Republican

In an interview published on Sunday in The New York Times, presumptive Republican presidential nominee John McCain made his feelings clear about gays and lesbians adopting children—he’s totally against it. However, he stated the subject of gay marriage is an issue best left to the states, not the federal government and he won’t attempt to overturn same-sex marriage in California if elected. Once again, McCain’s feelings about equal rights for the LGBT community seem mixed, but are they really?

Arizona Senator John McCain, who portrays himself as a staunch conservative Republican, has never felt shy in sharing his views on LGBT rights issues. Currently McCain is regarded as a strongly anti-gay Republican presidential candidate. Yet, earlier in his career, he seemed almost more of an ally than an enemy to the gay community.

McCain does not support federal legislation to outlaw job discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity. He also voted in the Senate against extending the definition of hate crimes to include sexual orientation. On the other hand, McCain signed a statement with 70 other senators in 1994 agreeing not to discriminate against gays and lesbians in hiring practices on Capitol Hill.

McCain is also strongly against gays and lesbians serving openly in the military, calling homosexuals in the armed forces an “intolerable risk” to national security, according to a statement to the Servicemembers Legal Defense Network (SLDN). In the early 90’s, the former senator seemed to have a very different view than he has now, saying that he felt gays and lesbians should be allowed to serve honestly in the military. Now, however, he is totally opposed to overturning “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”

In a letter to SLDN, McCain said he now believes “polarization of personnel and breakdown of unite effectiveness is too high a price to pay for well-intentioned but misguided efforts to elevate the interests of a minority of homosexual service members above those of their units.”

Unlike some of his fellow conservative Republicans, McCain has never advocated a federal ban on equal marriage rights for same-sex couples in 2004. In fact, McCain voted in the Senate against a federal constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage. Yet, McCain states that his opposition to a federal ban has nothing to do with supporting marriage equality for gays and lesbians. Instead, McCain opposes a federal ban because he feels marriage is an issue best left up to the states, not the federal government, calling such a ban “un-Republican.”

Although McCain has opposed a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage twice, he did vote for the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage under federal law as a union only between a man and a woman. DOMA also supported the legal right of states to refuse to recognize same-sex marriages in other states. He also supported an amendment to the Arizona state constitution banning same-sex marriage and denying government benefits to unmarried couples.

In 1999, McCain said in an interview with Reuters that he would be entirely “comfortable with a homosexual as president of the United States.” But while a gay president apparently isn’t appalling to the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, a possibly gay Alabama Attorney General as part of one of his campaign “leadership” teams is apparently a no-no.

This week, in an interview with The New York Times published on Sunday, McCain reaffirmed his belief that the issue of marriage should be left up to the states, a very Republican viewpoint. Regarding the same-sex marriages now taking place legally in California, McCain said he would continue to support the right of the states to regulate their own marriage legislation. “I respect the right of the states to make those decisions,” McCain said.

However, McCain did come out publicly in the interview to say that he believed gay couples should not be allowed to adopt. McCain, who has an adopted daughter with his wife Cindy, told the Times that “I think we’ve proven that both parents are important in the success of a family so, no, I don’t believe in gay adoption.”

When it comes to receiving the endorsement of some of those gays he does not believe have the right stuff to be parents, however, he is all for it. McCain's campaign has disputed extremely negative ratings he received regarding his stances on gay rights issues from the Human Rights Campaign. His campaign also released a statement saying Senator McCain was “proud to receive an endorsement form the Log Cabin Republicans” during his 2004 re-election campaign to the Senate.

The Log Cabin Republicans, in fact, argue that McCain’s record on LGBT rights is “inclusive and shows positive signs.” When his track record is evaluated, however, it seems the only “positive” views McCain has ever had regarding gay rights is that the states should have the power to discriminate against same-sex marriage without interference from the federal government.

Regardless of any semi-supportive sounding statements toward the gay community McCain may have made in the past, it is clear the presumptive Republican nominee is not at all “mixed” up in his views about the LGBT community’s place in society.

Gays can get married in California, as long as the federal government never has to give them equality under the nation’s highest laws. Gay and lesbian soldiers are perfectly fine in the military just as they are dying in service to our country, but allowing them to be open about their sexual orientation might doom America to disaster of the highest proportions.

And let’s not forget, a homosexual would be just fine running the White House and protecting America’s citizens at large against everything from national disasters to terrorism, according to McCain, but God forbid they should be allowed to raise a child.

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