Another Day, Another NY Times A1 Story Saying GOP Is Doomed; This Time Over Indiana

April 2nd, 2015 10:28 PM

If it's Thursday, it must be...yet another front-page New York Times story on the issue that is going to tear the Republican Party apart and doom prospects in 2016 (the actual issue changes every week, of course).

On cue with the ginned-up controversy over Indiana's Religious Freedom Restoration Act came reporter Jennifer Steinhauer's story, under a liberally stacked deck of headlines: "Rights Measures Expose Divisions In G.O.P.'s Ranks – Debate Enters '16 Race – Laws Seen as Targeting Gays, and Posing a Peril to Business." Steinhauer wasted no time:

In Indiana, the Republican mayor of Indianapolis argued against the law the Republican governor had signed. In Ohio, a group called the Young Conservatives for the Freedom to Marry tried to remove antigay language from the party platform. In Arkansas, the Republican governor faced a backlash from business and asked the Republican-led legislature to recall a bill seen as discriminatory to same-sex couples.

The Republican Party is in the middle of an argument with itself.

The favorite place for the Republican Party to be, at the Times.

State laws seen as discriminatory against gay couples have laid bare and intensified longtime divisions in the party between social conservatives opposed to gay rights and the pro-business wing of the party that sees economic peril in the fight.