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?