Republican Party Chair
Calls Civil Unions "Crazy"

Dustin Lance Black and Sean Penn raised the world's awareness about marriage equality at the Academy Awards Sunday, and gay author Jonathan Rauch struck a compromise on the issue with David Blankenhorn of the Institute for American Values (the two penned an op-ed in the Sunday New York Times calling for federal civil unions). But according to Republican Party chairman Michael Steele, the GOP has no time for such talk. In an interview Monday on Michael Gallagher's radio show, Steele called any consideration of civil unions "crazy."

GALLAGHER: Is there a time when Republicans ought to consider some sort of alternative to redefining marriage and maybe in the road, down the road to civil unions. Do you favor civil unions?

STEELE: No, no, no. What would we do that for? What are you, crazy? No. Why would we backslide on a core, founding value of this country? I mean, this isn't something that you're just kind of like, "Oh, well, today you feel, you know, loosey-goosey on marriage ."

GALLAGHER: So, no room even for a conversation about civil unions in your mind?

STEELE: What's the difference?

Steele's comments were an about-face from what he said last fall, when he told the Washington Times that the GOP needs to reach out to new communities and that it "has to realize that there are constituencies in the body politic that have no interest in conservative litmus tests based on same-sex marriage and abortion." (Advocate.com)