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Brown says states, military should rule on gay marriage and DADT

by Susan Marie Kovalinsky | February 1, 2010 at 12:00 pm

257 views | 16 Recommendations | 2 comments

The gay blogs are already having their say on Scott Brown and his statements regarding gay political issues.

Brown, looks, dare I say, quite "fourth turning" in the meaning proposed by political analysts and historic team, Howe and Strauss. That ought to carry import, but I know it does not, cannot, at this time. If I did not know better, I would almost think Brown might replace Obama as the "Grey Champion" who makes his mysterious appearance in the fourth turning of American history. States' rights, and all notwithstanding: He loooks the part.

In any case:

Now that Scott Brown is the newest U.S. senator, everyone cares what he has to say about The Gays. Like whether he's up for letting them get married, or serving openly in the military.
On marriage, Brown has the same position as President Obama: Let the state's decide. That's either a progressive stance for a Republican to have, or the natural one for a U.S. senator from Massachusetts to have, given his own state decided the gay marriage issue already — and he's willing to let it stand. Unclear from this interview is how Brown feels about the Defense of Marriage Act.

And for the men and women in uniform (Brown is a National Guard vet), Brown isn't making any calls yet — he first wants to hear from the military leaders on the ground in Iraq and Afghanistan. Which, again, while notexactly what we want to hear, is a more nuanced approach to the issue than we've heard from almost any member of the GOP. It's also the line Barack Obama keeps feeding us! And for a guy who supports the "big tent" approach to the Republican Party, maybe this means he won't just be falling into line with GOP leadership, like House Minority Leader John Boehner, who just got done saying the president needs to take a break on his repeal efforts.

Does that make him our new BFF? Hardly. But at this point, we'll settle for the "at least he's not the second coming of John McCain."

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stejeb

at 14:08 on February 1st, 2010

From what this guy has to say on the video, Obama needs more like him.

Rory Cripps

at 18:51 on February 1st, 2010

My take on Brown is that he's a new kind of Republican politician. I sense that he's not died-in-the-wool by any means and might turn out to be an ally to Dems on certain issues in the coming years.

Brown is no doubt conservative in some of his views, however he has been described as a social moderate and a liberal Republican.

For example, Brown supported the 2006 Massachusetts health care reform, which requires all residents to purchase health insurance. And on abortion Brown said, “Roe v. Wade is the law of the land, and I don’t plan on overturning it, but I’ve always felt that, you know, I’m against partial-birth abortions". On a formative level, Brown grew up and spent his childhood in an environment that would hardly be considered Republican or "conservative": His parents both remarried three times and he often lived with his grandparents and his aunt.