Once upon a time in a land known as America circa 2004, a growing consensus was emerging. The evangelical right had just flexed their political muscle, not only overwhelmingly voting to re-elect President Bush by a 70% margin (many would argue pushing him over the edge in Ohio) but also approving gay marriage bans in 11 different states, boosting their turnout in crucial battlegounds and making life hell for Team Blue. The political calculus was that the gay marriage argument was an effective cudgel to use against Democrats, as it guaranteed high Christian Right turnout and inevitably lead to defeat for Democrats who were associated with anything other than a full government-sponsored ban.
Flash forward a few years, and a different trend is emerging. Despite reprising the gay marriage argument again in 2006, Democrats managed to completely bypass the issue and still succeeded (the Virginia Senate election being a good example). The proposed Federal Marriage Amemdment went down in flames. More states began to adopt marriage equality, and public opinion shifted more towards gay rights than ever before.
But a different trend emerged as well. Namely, the gay marriage argument had less hold in elections. Say what you want about Obama’s policies on the issue since taking office, but he campaigned as the most pro-gay Presidential candidate in US history – while against full marriage equality, he supported about every other major position from repealing DOMA and DADT to full protection in the workplace and in hate crimes. It barely came up as a blip in the overall election. In Iowa, despite the GOP’s attempts to turn gay marriage into a major issue, the general response has been a collective shrug, as no Republican has been able to make significant ground on Gov. Culver on the issue, and it didn’t have an impact in last Tuesday’s HD90 special as Democrat Curt Hanson still prevailed.
In California, the AD51 special played out in a similar way. The district, which is heavily African-American and voted in large numbers for Prop 8, elected Steve Bradford, a candidate that received a 100% rating from California Equality. His opponent Gloria Gray targeted the church community to attack him over his pro-gay views, ran ads questioning his Christian values, and even push-polled on the gay marriage issue. Bradford got 52% of the vote while Gray couldn’t even crack 20%, with the consensus being that voters were turned off over her narrow focus on gay marriage.
My question is – are we seeing a larger trend emerging? Is gay marriage no longer going to be the hot-ticket item for the Republican party? Why has it fallen off? And why are voters more willing to split their votes – that is, vote against marrriage but still support Democrats – than they were only a few years ago?
This is a diary intended to spark dialogue about the political ramifications of this issue, not over whether you think marriage equality ought to happen. I’m curious about this because it wasn’t too long ago it was viewed as the linchpin to future Republican success, not only for high evangelical turnout but to also peel away socially conservative African-American and latino voters from the Democrats. Several prognosticators including Michael Barone and Ruy Texeira predicted it would be a huge wedge issue in the Democratic Party, leading to further dischord and electoral losses. None of this has occured. So what’s your take on it? Is it because of economic woes, and the issue will surface again once people aren’t worried about their paycheck? Or are we moving into a new era in the gay rights debate?
while reading this article in the Des Moines Register:
The Republicans are grasping at straws here.
By the way, it’s been widely reported that Democrat Curt Hanson supports a marriage amendment to the state constitution, but I don’t think that’s the case. One Iowa/Fairness Fund PAC supported Hanson in a big way, and they do their research before endorsing candidates. I don’t expect Hanson to vote with Republicans in the Iowa House when they try to bring a marriage amendment to the floor.
In the blue collar Baltimore, MD suburbs, people are pretty racist most of the time, but most people really don’t give a shit about whether or not gays get married. Sure there are a few dumbasses who get tricked into becoming evangelicals in order to have something to grasp onto in their humdrum lives, and they don’t like gays, but most people there don’t go to church, so most don’t really give much thought to the issue. In that area, bread-and-butter issues are most important, with race being the major wedge issue that causes some to vote Republican. I think a good large chunk of the country is like this.
At the University of MD, College Park, if you don’t support gay marriage you’re basically an outcast, and you don’t have much fun here.
Here in MD at least, homophobia won’t guarantee you anything. We only have one really vocal anti-gay politician, Del. Don Dwyer of district 31 in AA County, but homophobia hasn’t even been good for him. He only won by 50 votes in 2006 as an incumbent, which was actually a REALLY GOOD year for Republicans in District 31.
The centrist electorate has vented all its anxieties and so have moderate Republicans- they’ve had five years to do it, and they have.
They’ve been told it’s coming in the long run and they’ve run out reasons to seriously care: gay marriage doesn’t seem to affect society or their wallets for the worse in any way.
People still bias as before when forced to choose. But they feel little of the urgency or anxiety they did about it in 2004/05/06.
Here in Massachusetts the fuel to the fire actually mostly burned out in spring and summer of 2004 and was only an activist concern by 2005 and 2006. The summer of 2007 (when the last hope of getting gay marriage de-legalized died in the state legislature vote) it was an issue that inspired lethargy in average voters. There weren’t many conservative activists left or any meaningful grassroots conservative effort.
I think conservative-leaning swing voters are taking the view that they’ll personally never vote for gay marriage legalization or help it along. But they seem to view it as a reality that presents no danger and that it’s proved to be an issue of personal taste more than anything else.
The age gap guarantees that in about 20 years there will just but a bunch of old people with outrageous views–well in the minority.
Not that the issue doesn’t warrant discussion, but because our Nation has yet accepted that all people are, in fact, equal. The LBGT community should be allowed the same right that I’ve enjoyed for 14 years. It’s not fair at all.
The thing that pisses me off the most is that a lot of conservative churches are making a buttload of money by preaching the alleged evil of gay marriage. It’s almost like Rush Limbaugh making more money now because we have a Democratic President. A bunch of opportunistic assholes. Preaching fear and intolerance about gay marriage has to be stopped in its tracks.
An open Lesbian is the leading candidate right now to be the next Mayor of HOUSTON, TX.
http://www.anniseparker.com/home/
Now, Annise Parker did previously serve three terms as Controller, and it is my understanding that Sue Lovell, an At-Large Council Woman, is also an open lesbian (can someone fact check me here, I am 99.9% certain on this one). But this is the Mayoral slot. Having an openly gay person run the fourth largest city in America, and a rather conservative one at that, would a be a huge effin’ deal.
When the choice is between voting for the first black President and voting for the party against gay rights, I think the choice was obvious for even the most virulent homophobes in the black community.