CUCR Endorses Gay Marriage!

(and Dems do too, but you knew that already…)

It seems that President Obama isn’t the only one whose views on gay marriage are evolving. On Valentine’s day this past week, CUCR announced that it officially supports gay marriage. The idea was started by the University of Pennsylvania Republicans, who pushed for all Ivy League Republican and Democratic groups to join together and sign a pledge of support. Obviously the Dems were excited to voice their support, but this is a new stance for the College Republicans. CUCR voted on whether to sign the pledge or not, and in the end 75% of the board endorsed the pro-gay marriage statement.

Unfortunately, not not all Ivy league schools followed Columbia’s lead, falling short of the Pennsylvania Republicans’ goal. CUCR president Tyler Trumbach was disappointed, but still proud of the pledge. In a statement to the Columbia Spectator he said, “While CUCR stands behind its decision to endorse marriage equality, we are deeply saddened to learn that in fact not all the ivy league chapters of the College Republicans have signed onto the pledge. When we asked if we could go ahead and make our pre-statement on Valentine’s Day, we were told that we could by the Pennsylvania Republicans. We were under the impression from the organizers of the pledge at the University of Pennsylvania that all if not most were going to sign it. We have now learned that this is not the case. However, we still believe that we made the right decision. We are also proud of the fact that we made the announcement first. Hopefully, our decision will serve as an example to other schools in the future.”

This is a big move for CUCR, and one that has interesting consequences for the future of American conservatism. The Republican party is in flux, and it needs to change its approach if it’s going to appeal to younger voters, women, and minorities. Perhaps adopting a pro-marriage equality platform is one step of the party’s modern rebrand. As CUCR  Director of Finance, Tom Callander, says “worst case scenario, it’ll be ignored.” And perhaps other college Republican groups will dismiss CUCR’s statement as being influenced by Columbia’s liberalism. But hopefully the message will be heard, and other conservative groups will start to think similarly. While the Cub Pub is politically non-partisan, we do strongly support marriage equality  for gay and lesbian couples. The Cub Pub believes this is a strong and important step for both Republicans on campus and, hopefully, for Republicans across the country.

The decision was a bit easier for the CU Democrats. President Janine Balekdjian made that especially clear, saying “of course it’s a no-brainer.  I mean we’ve supported marriage equality for way before I’ve even been at Columbia.” But that doesn’t mean that they’ve been any less vocal. In fact, this past Saturday the Dems mobilized to protest a “Defenses of Traditional Marriage” conference being held in Lerner Hall. Check later this week for an editorial about the protest, but if you can’t wait tere are some pictures from their 8 AM rally below. And if you want to hear CUCR and CU Dems presidents discuss their statement together just watch the video from Spec’s Newscast.

EDIT: The image at the top of the page, Newt’s Pride, taken  from Politix

18. February 2013 by Zach Kagan, Editor-in-Chief
Categories: Campus Politics | Tags: CU Dems, CUCR, Gingrich, marriage equality, same sex marriage equality, Times are a' changing | 2 comments