From the Archives: Gay and libertarian GOP groups critique SCOTUS Obamacare ruling

Gay and libertarian GOP groups critique SCOTUS Obamacare ruling
June 28, 2012 1:59 PM MST

While politicians around the country have offered their views on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision today regarding the Affordable Care Act (colloquially known as “Obamacare”), some discrete interest groups within the Republican party have added their voices to the mix.

Two groups with similar initials – LCR and RLC – have weighed in on the debate about the meaning and impact of the Court’s ruling.

Log Cabin Republicans (LCR), which calls itself the largest organization of gay and lesbian activists within the GOP, raised attention to the discriminatory provisions of the health-care laws.

Not ‘carved in stone’
Christian Berle, LCR’s deputy executive director, said in a press statement that Log Cabin Republicans "have not forgotten that Democrats in Congress stripped provisions protecting LGBT families out of healthcare reform when it was passed. We remain committed to ending the Internal Revenue Service’s discriminatory treatment of employer-provided healthcare for domestic partners. While the Court may have found Obamacare to be constitutional, that does not mean it has been carved in stone. Now is the time to go back to the drawing board and institute reforms that work for all Americans.”

Berle also criticized the individual mandate, which was upheld as constitutional based upon its status as a tax.

“By upholding even the most intrusive provision of Obamacare, the individual mandate, the court has enabled Washington’s addiction to big government and coercive taxes,” Berle said, explaining that “the individual mandate forced through Congress was an unprecedented expansion of federal power in blatant disregard of the will of the American people.”

The Republican Liberty Caucus (RLC), an organization of libertarian and classical liberal activists within the GOP, touted its endorsed candidates as the remedy for Obamacare.

‘Unreasonable taxation’

A statement emailed to members and the news media by RLC chair Dave Nalle argued that “while Obamacare may technically be Constitutional, because the 16th Amendment opens the door to all sorts of unreasonable taxation, that does not mean that it is good policy. Raising taxes enormously on every citizen, either directly in the form of penalties or indirectly in the form of mandated health insurance and inflated prices, is outrageous in a time of high unemployment and economic uncertainty.”

The RLC statement explained:

“As fewer and fewer people pay taxes at all, placing an even greater burden on the productive segment of the population is unconscionable. Even worse, this is just the first step. As insurance prices rise the call will come for more interference by government and we will slide into the complete control of the healthcare system by unaccountable bureaucrats, an end to individual choice and a rapid decline in quality of service.”

Saying that today’s ruling provides Republicans with “a winning issue” and “a rallying cry,” the RLC pointed to its candidates as supporters of repeal of the unpopular health-care law.

“Candidates like Ted Cruz in Texas and Barry Hinckley in Rhode Island are poised to join our prior endorsees like Rand Paul and Mike Lee in creating a powerful voting block in the Senate which will never compromise when liberty is threatened,” said the RLC statement.

“In the House those same values which are being championed today by Ron Paul and Justin Amash will be carried forward with reinforcements like Thomas Massie in Kentucky, Lauren Stephens in Wisconsin, Kerry Bentivolio in Michigan, Jessica Puente Bradshaw in Texas and scores of others,” the RLC continued. “With their guidance Congress will reassert its authority over the federal bureaucracy and demand accountability from the executive branch.”

Earlier in the day, an independent gay conservative group, GOProud, also issued a statement severely critical of the Supreme Court’s health-care decision.


Publisher's note: This article is part of a series to mark June as Gay Pride Month. It was originally published on Examiner.com on June 28, 2012. The Examiner.com publishing platform was discontinued July 1, 2016, and its web site went dark on or about July 10, 2016.  I am republishing this piece in an effort to preserve it and all my other contributions to Examiner.com since April 6, 2010. It is reposted here without most of the internal links that were in the original.