The battle lines over gay marriage are about to be redrawn. Billionaire hedge-fund manager Paul E. Singer, a highly sought after Republican donor, tells The New York Times that he is putting $1 million into starting a conservative super PAC — American Unity PAC — whose only mission will be to encourage GOP congressional candidates to support same-sex marriage. Singer, who helped bankroll the push to legalize gay marriage in New York, says many Republican candidates are "harboring or hiding" their openness to legalizing gay marriage, and he wants to financially shield them from the backlash of powerful conservative groups that oppose it — by funding and producing ads that could drown out any criticism a candidate's pro-gay-marriage stance provokes. Could this be the beginning of a surge in moderate Republican support for gay marriage?
This will help Republicans remain relevant: More than half of Americans under 34 openly support gay marriage, says Doug Barry at Jezebel, and reasonable Republicans know that their party's "anachronistic" stand on the issue is political poison. Creating a super PAC to show that not all Republicans are living in the past is "simply a very smart, calculated move to help keep the GOP from eventually going extinct in a cretaceous burst of moral righteousness."
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