In an interview with the Weekly Standard’s Stephen Hayes yesterday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that he wouldn’t rule out former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge as his running mate even though “he happens to be pro-choice.” McCain added that being “pro-life” is a “fundamental tenet” of the Republican Party, “but that does not mean we exclude people from our party that are pro-choice.”
McCain then indicated that he thought the party could “exclude people” for being “pro-gay rights“:
“I think it’s a fundamental tenet of our party to be pro-life but that does not mean we exclude people from our party that are pro-choice. We just have a–albeit strong–but just it’s a disagreement. And I think Ridge is a great example of that. Far more so than Bloomberg, because Bloomberg is pro-gay rights, pro, you know, a number of other issues.”
Asked if McCain meant someone couldn’t “be pro-gay and still be a Republican,” an anonymous McCain adviser told the Atlantic’s Marc Ambinder that McCain’s Bloomberg comment was actually “a message of inclusion.”
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/14/mccain-bloomberg-pro-gay-rights/Yeah, that's inclusion. Shithead!:spank: