Subscribe
The Daily Grind Video
CLOSE

Richard Cohen, the man who once said he was scared of black people, is back at it again with some pretty disturbing comments on interracial marriage and sexual orientation.

In his Nov. 11 column, “Christie’s tea-party problem,” published in the Washington Post, Cohen argues that today’s GOP isn’t racist, however, they do have trouble embracing some of the country’s cultural shifts.

Like NYC mayor-elect Bill de Blasio‘s “gag-reflex” inducing interracial family.

Today’s GOP is not racist, as Harry Belafonte alleged about the tea party, but it is deeply troubled — about the expansion of government, about immigration, about secularism, about the mainstreaming of what used to be the avant-garde. People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?) This family represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts — but not all — of America. To cultural conservatives, this doesn’t look like their country at all.

Well, damn. Way to speak for all conservatives, Cohen.

Truth is, conservatives are a little less hung up on interracial marriage than Cohen thinks.

In July, Gallup found that 87% of Americans approve of interracial marriage, including 83% of those in the South and 70% of those aged 65 and older. Gallup didn’t provide partisan or ideological breakdowns for their 2013 survey, but in 2011 they found that 78% of conservatives and 77% of Republicans approved of interracial marriage.

Is it safe to say those were more his views than anything? Sound off below. And to read the rest of Cohen’s column, click here.

SOURCE: Washington Post, Business Insider | PHOTO CREDIT: Getty