Because the Republican party is full of rich dudes named “Fred” and whenever anybody mentions ‘gay rights’ the Freds think back to that spring afternoon in the Choate locker room when the freshman with the floppy hair and the blue eyes slipped a hand under the Freds’ towel and gave the Freds a little smirk and said “just relax” and for just one minute everything was glorious and after that the Freds went on to jobs they hated and wives, ditto, and after twenty years they saw in the paper where the blue-eyed freshman was an ACLU attorney dying of AIDS who became free in all the ways the Freds couldn’t and nothing, nothing, nothing pisses the Freds off like reminding them of that beautiful spring day at Choate.