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The point is this. The homosexual community has an agenda. It plans to hit the ground running. The pro-family community is mostly on the defensive. The homosexual community at this stage very much reminds me of the emerging pro-family community in 1980. That year, Senator Paul Laxalt (R-NV), Ronald Reagan's closest friend in the Congress, introduced the Family Protection Act. It was an agenda carefully assembled by the family community. It enabled that community to hit the ground running when Ronald Reagan became president. The homosexual community, which had been showing its muscle in the 1970s, became defensive after 1980. The situation today is nearly the mirror-image of the situation more than a quarter of a century ago. In policy politics the pendulum swings back and forth. Yesterday it was the pro-family community which was on the offensive, the homosexual community on the defensive. Now, because the homosexual community believes the number of members sympathetic to its agenda will greatly increase, it is on the offensive. While elements of the Family Protection Act were enacted into law, the pro-family community has not been on the offensive for some years. Hence, there has been a stand-off. The homosexual community did not have the votes to accomplish its agenda but it did have the votes to thwart some pro-family measures. Only the pro-life issue advanced on the margins these past few years.

As Jack Kemp always reminded us, in this business you are either on offense or defense. Unless and until the pro-family groups again are able to go on the offense they are likely to loose ground. As unfortunate as that may be, it is reality. To return to the offense the pro-family forces would need more members of Congress. At this stage it appears they will be dealing next year with fewer, not more, in sympathy with their agenda. More members, it seems to me, must be that community's first priority if it expects to be successful.

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Paul M. Weyrich is Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.

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Note -- The opinions expressed in this column are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions, views, and/or philosophy of GOPUSA.

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