Ron Reagan, the son of President Ronald
Reagan, has called Republican opposition to gay rights “absurd.”
Reagan and Jimmy LaSalvia, the
president of gay GOP group GOProud, appeared on MSNBC's Hardball
to discuss a Supreme Court amicus brief filed by more than 80
Republicans in support of gay marriage.
(Related: Meg
Whitman, Jon Huntsman join other Republicans in support of gay
marriage.)
LaSalvia, whose group only
recently came out in support of marriage equality, said
conservatives have started thinking about the issue differently
because “everybody has gay people in their lives now.”
Reagan said that the subject of gay
rights remains a “huge problem for Jimmy's party, the Republican
Party.”
“It's not just that they are hateful
towards gay people, it's that they are ridiculous about this issue,”
Reagan told host Chris Matthews. “Now you can be hated and people
still respect you in some way, shape or form. But when you're
absurd, when you're ridiculous about this kind of issue, you lack all
credibility.”
LaSalvia neither defended Republicans
nor clarified whether he believes gays are respected in the GOP.
Instead he agreed with Matthews that the Republican Party's platform
was anti-gay and should be changed.
“This issue crosses all demographic
groups because gay people are in every single family. … As we look
to build a conservative coalition that can win again, we have to take
this into consideration,” LaSalvia answered. (The video is
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