The Inability of Republicans to Address Gay Rights Could Cost Them the White House

Like a grim spectre, the ghost of prejudices past is still haunting the Republican party as it gears up for the 2008 election.

It was not meant to be this way. One of the messages of the Democratic win in November's midterm elections was that the divisive politics pioneered by Karl Rove was no longer working.

America - the argument convincingly went - had too many serious problems with Iraq, terrorism, the environment and healthcare to make using traditional rightwing scare tactics on abortion and gay marriage the centre of any winning campaign. It seemed like a blow had been struck for making politics serious (and tolerant).

But old Republican habits die hard. Just ask Mitt Romney.

Mr Romney is shaping up to be the main challenger to John McCain in the race to win the Republican presidential nomination. He is seeking to position himself as the conservative alternative to Mr McCain, whose straight-talking style has previously angered many on the Republican right. If he plays his cards well, Mr Romney could quite easily be the next president of the United States. He has movie-star good looks, a loving family, is deeply religious and, as a Republican governor in the famously blue state of Massachusetts, would seem to have credentials to appeal to a broad swathe of Americans.

But Mr Romney has run into trouble. In seeking to pander to the social conservatives, he has been accused - quite literally - of not being anti-gay enough. A letter has emerged that Mr Romney wrote in 1994 to the Log Cabin club of Massachusetts, which is a Republican gay rights group. In it, Mr Romney stated: "We must make equality for gays and lesbians a mainstream concern."

It is hard to see the shock value in that. To most sane people that sort of bland statement would not seem controversial. But sanity can be a rare commodity on the Republican right. Suddenly Tony Perkins, the head of the Family Research Council, was calling the statement "disturbing". An influential political blog in Utah asked: "Will this sink Romney's campaign?".

Romney's nascent campaign staff - he still has not declared outright that he will run for the White House - have been forced to issue clarifying statements. In them, they attacked the idea that homosexual couples should be allowed to marry. Mr Romney has been dealt a tough lesson on just how conservative you have to be to win the support of the Republican right. And it's not pretty.

This unpleasant spectacle is still typical of much of the modern Republican party, despite the midterm election losses. Yet, perversely, that is good news for Democrats. The Republicans look increasingly out of step on these social issues. This should not surprise anyone glancing at the daily headlines emerging from Iraq, Iran, elsewhere in the Middle East, Darfur or Afghanistan. The list seems endless ... and shows that there are bigger things going on in the world than trying to stop two men or two women getting married.

But opposing gay rights remains a litmus test for Republican presidential hopefuls and, ironically, that could destroy their party's best hope to win the White House in 2008. For the man who tops almost all White House polls at the moment is the former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani. His popularity in the country at large is huge and genuine. But his liberal social views are potentially suicidal in his own party.

To many Democrats this is all baffling. Not least because the Republicans' strident anti-gay tactics come after repeated "scandals" in which senior conservative figures have been outed as homosexuals. To be obsessed with such an issue is both bigoted and bad for Republican political fortunes. But if it helps get a Democrat elected in 2008 it might be good for America and the world as a whole.