EDGE New England

Recognizing its dwindling base and lack of minorities, the Grand Old Party has quickly repositioned itself as more welcoming, setting off a sea change in their involvement in LGBT issues.

Soon after top conservative organizations threatened to leave the GOP if the party did not actively oppose marriage equality, the Republican National Committee unanimously voted to oppose same-sex marriage in its platform.

Will the party of Lincoln come to its sense, or will it sink into crotchety senescence? Post-election, the question remains.

The Grand Old Party is, indeed, the party of "old" but not so grand. The only way to get nominated is to cater to the far-right primary voters, while the rest of the country has moved away from ignorance about issues such as gay rights.

Although the gay rights movement suffered a loss this week with North Carolina voting to ban same-sex marriage, a number of articles suggest that Republican lawmakers are finally coming around to support marriage equality.

Despite strong indications the electorate doesn’t want to institutionalize anti-gay policy, the GOP, as the presidential contenders showed us, believe an appeal to the party’s base means sometimes appealing to their basest instincts.

One thing we’ve learned from the farce known as a race to the GOP presidential nomination: the more a candidate blathers about morality, the more of a cheating scum he is . The race has thus turned into a remake of ’The Women.’

R. Clarke Cooper, the head of the Log Cabin Republicans, sat down with EDGE to discuss how the gay group sees the presidential race, how far the party’s come to our side, and how much work remains to be done to turn the Grand Old Party around.

So far, the GOP candidates have been tripping over each other to oppose gay rights, from the military to marriage. But is this a winning strategy overall? EDGE looks at unchanging attitudes in a changing electorate.

GOP frontrunner Newt Gingrich said he would put judges before a congressional hearing for rulings that the president or Congress did not agree with. Gingrich says he would even have a U.S. marshal arrest a juge to enforce his new policy.