What'll happen if gay marriage is made a big 2004 campaign issue?

Great Debates
1

A lot of theorizing is going on about how Republicans (or perhaps more accurately, conservatives) will react to the Massachusetts ruling. One vibe I’m getting from a lot of sources is that they will attempt to push gay marriage as a major Presidential campaign issue, with many analyzing how the Democratic frontrunners will (and have) react(ed).

Of course, there are certain perils to doing this, especially if it comes in tandem with efforts to make gay marriage illegal pretty much forever and no matter what. Gay rights is a pretty hard thing to judge, when it comes to voter reaction. While majorities in polls oppose gay marriage, there’s also a lot of evidence to suggest that this “intolerance” only goes so far. Also, a group that feels pushed up against a wall may very well (and probably will) fight harder against those doing the pushing, and while a majority may oppose gay marriage, there’s still a lot of supporters and undecideds out there, much more so than ever before.

So suppose this becomes a ceterpiece of the campaign in 2004, as many suggest. What do you think will happen? Will it energize conservative voters? Liberal voters? Will the Republicans be relatively subtle, or will they overplay their hand? Will the Democrats try to appeal to those who support gay rights, or will they wimp out in an attempt to go with the majorities they need to win? What’ll all of this do to the Constitutional amendment effort?

Or will the tempest fizzle out as arguably more important issues like the economy and Iraq develop?

So many questions, so few answers…

2

It will be a major campaign issue if the Forces of Darkness have anything to say about it. To my mind, this is pretty small potatoes, being straight and uninterested in marrying anybody. But there isn’t much doubt that the Bushiviks will pump this for all its worth. Most likely Bush himself will remain a bit detached, he wants to energize the Trodlogdyte Right without actively offending gay people.

There are social and political conservatives who find this kind of thing repulsive. The question is more will they hold thier noses and ignore it “for the good of the Party”. I expect so.

This is shaping up to be real ugly political season. Real ugly.

3

If it becomes a “big issue” it will play right into the hands of the Republicans. Republicans don’t even have to pretend to favor the matter and can even get away with slightly negative non-commital. Democrats, on the other hand, cannot afford to even look non-commital. If they are non-commital, the extremists on the right will claim that they “secretly” favor it and the extremists on the left will demand that they come out 100% in favor or not get their votes.

So, did GWB nominate the current Massachussetts supreme court? This is a ready-made dream issue for the republicans.

4

If the Pubbies think they can make some hay by elevating this as an issue, they surely will. That’s the way both parties work. And while it’s unlikely that pro-gay marriage folks will desert the Dems for the Pubs if the Dem candidate comes out against gay marriage, there may be a few single issue types who will vote Green instead. Anyone know such a single-issue poster here who might shed some light on that?:slight_smile:

5

The pubbies won’t focus on gays themselves. They will focus on the “liberal” judges that would promote gay marriage. Therefore…vote for us, we won’t appoint “liberal” judges.

6

I hope it doesn’t.

I’m in favor of gay marriage, but I think it’s far more important to the legislature and the courts than to the executive branch. The two things I most want from my presidential candidate are 1) a coherent plan to get us out of Iraq without leaving civil war or dictatorship or theocracy in our wake, and 2) a reversal of certain administration policies, including military tribunals and imprisonment without charge, that I believe are completely repugnant to the Constitution. I’d happily accept a president who was opposed to gay marriage if he could provide those two things.

Personally, I don’t see it as a winning issue for either side, especially in a time of war. (Neither is my number 2, for that matter).

7

Its not so much a winning issue as it is a divisive one. Republicans are solidly against gay marriage, and the Dems are divided on the issue. Its total win-win for the Forces of Darkness: it energizes thier extreme wing and causes the liberal and centrist Dems to argue. Its a slice of political Heaven for the Pubbies.

I dunno, maybe God really really loves Karl Rove. Or perhaps some other supernatural entity.

8

There aren’t any big time Democrats I’m aware of that really advocate the right to same sex marriages. A lot endorse the state’s right to pass civil union laws, which a bigger minority are not all that opposed to.

The polls seem to say about 2/3 of the public are against gay marriages but I bet it’s much stronger in places the Democrats have little chance of winning and the Republicans have little chance of losing, so I don’t see it as an issue the Republicans can press too strongly on the national level.

If Republicans push the issue in the presidental election, it runs the risk of offending people in areas where public opinion on the issue is more narrowly divided.

It could be a great local or state issue but until a lot of gay marriages actually occur, the general public aren’t going to get really upset about the issue.

9

Let’s imagine either Dean or Kerry is the candidate. How many southern states are they going to pick up anyway? I don’t think anti-gay marriage is much of a net benefit to Republicans in blue states, however much it is a benefit in red states. All this does is increase the margin of victory in red states, without gaining many blue states. It could make a difference in house and senate races though.

10

This isn’t too bad of a take:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2091428/

Suggesting that abortion was another issue that looked like a win win for anti-abortion side, but ultimately turned against them. You can’t be too cocky about things like this.

However, this isn’t good for the Dems. Heck, it isn’t very good for gay marriage. The one thing it is good for is that we will likely have legally married gay people before this can be stopped, which will put the right in the odd position of wanting to break up marriages. The radio crowd has been testing out their approaches to this, and the judge issue definately seems a big winning point.

Of course, the scream today is that since a majority doesn’t want it, it shouldn’t happen, as if we lived in a country where 51% of the people can decide to poke out the eyeballs of the other 49% on a whim. They didn’t seem to have a hard time understanding that our country is more complex than simple majoritarianism back when the electoral college win rightly went to Bush. But suddenly they’ve forgotten, not even bothering to raise such points so as to refute them. If they disagree with the court’s ruling, that’s fine. But to simply label it groundless activism without even refuting its reasoning is just sloppy knee-jerk partisanship.

Instead, it’s all switching back and forth between gay marriage and the Michael Jackson story with knowing winks, with stuff on the order of ‘So that’s what I think of gay marriage. Anyhow, notice that Michael Jackson molests boys, not girls. I think you know what that means’

‘Maybe Michael should just move to Massachusetts where he could marry the kid and everything would be okay.’

As some commentator said, if they focus on the judges, they’ll be able to have a legitamate issue to fire people up about, and still be able to code the stronger anti-gay and anti-gay marriage ideas quietly enough to both satisfy those who want stronger condemnations of homosexuality without alienating the country by being too anti-gay. If they are seen to be straight out anti-gay, the issue could turn on them. Too much harping on gay marriage itself could make the issue seem like a defense of a special privalege, turning the tables.

After all, it’s a little nonsensical to speak of gay marriage being imposed on “us” in anything other than a conceptual sense. It’s being imposed on the government of Mass, not anyone else. If you don’t want to get a gay marriage, who is forcing you too? I guess you could argue that it forces people to shoulder more due to the tax breaks and benefits that gay spouses can now get. But that’s probably a pretty weak argument.

11

**

Who are “they?” I can see that the subject might come up but I really doubt it’s going to be a huge issue. I suspect it will remain issues in various states for a few years to come unless the Supreme Court makes some sort of blanket ruling. Or did I miss such a ruling already?

**

I think they’d wimp out. There are a lot of people who vote democrat who’d be right at home with Republican christian fundamentalist when it comes to homosexuals.

**

I think we’ll have bigger issues to tackle during the campaign. The election is still a year away so who really knows that will be the topic du jour. I don’t think it will be gun control, the drug war, or gay marriage though.

Marc

12

When has the Religious Right ever not overplayed a hand to the point where it backfired? When have they ever not succeeded more in giving the impression that they’re meanspirited and divisive than that they stand for true morality? Why would it be different this time?

Joan Venocchi draws parallels to the 1992 GOP convention where such rhetoric helped elect Clinton.

13

elucidator is too modest to point this out himself, but months ago he speculated that Howard Dean, who as governor of Vermont signed the first civil-union law in the U.S., was quietly being supported by the overflowing coffers of the GOP itself.

It’s as good a plan as the Republicans can have, since they are now entirely responsible for any perceived failings of government, Fauxnews spin and filibusters in the Senate aside.

14

I think that gay marriage will become a very big issue for this coming election season. My opinion is that this issue will further polarize Americans. The people that fall in the vast middle, including myself, will have to split the difference. Those that actually vote will probably vote along the political lines that most closely resemble a Libertarian. This will most likely pull votes from the Republicans.

15

IIRC, Florida was a pretty hotly contested state in the last election, wasn’t it? And doesn’t that state have a few electoral votes to dish out? All you need is a few far left types going to the Greens and few middle of the road types going to the Pubs to tip the balace there. This issue is mana from heaven (so to speak) for the Pubs.

16

This will be a big issue in the election. It is the issue Dean is most identified besides Iraq and as he backs away from Iraq it will rise in importance. The governor of Massachusetts is a Republican and he is opposed to gay marriage. As people see the judiciary order the legislature of Mass around people in that state will be inflamed by it. Then when couples from around the country get married in Mass and sue their own states, the issue will grow bigger. The debate over the constitutionality of the Defense of Marriage Act will cause rifts in the democrat party while unifying Republicans. Also it will cause Dean headaches as people will try to have his papers from his governorship opened. Remember after Vermont passed the civil unions bill 17 pro-civil union incumbents lossed and all 64 anti-civil unions incumbents were re-elected and Vermont is so far left it elects a socialist to the congress.

17

Since none of the major Democratic candidates support gay marriage I don’t think it will hurt them much. I don’t think that support for gay civil union is a vote loser. AFAIK Bush has never come out openly against gay civil union which is pretty revealing. Gore in 2000 also supported gay civil union and explicitly mentioned the Vermont law passed by Howard Dean during the debates but it didn’t become a big issue.

“All you need is a few far left types going to the Greens and few middle of the road types going to the Pubs to tip the balace there. This issue is mana from heaven (so to speak) for the Pubs”
You could just as easily have social moderates being put off by anti-gay rhetoric and deciding not to vote for the GOP. Personally I think it will be a minor issue electorally for both sides.

18

It is my experience as an active observer or voter ever since Ike took out Adli, that the American electorate will punish any candidate who either presents them with a problem they are not ready to deal with or who requires them to think. Except for dyed in the wool, man on top of woman, true believers (or in the alternative man/woman on top of man/woman true believers), I expect that the whole thing is too distasteful or requires too much thinking for most folks. Anybody who stands up or their hind legs and shouts about it is going to get slapped down.

The whole attack the judges thing also has a down side, too, since it is an admission that the law is not graven in stone and that personal judgments effect the out come of hard and novel cases.

This thing is going to get ugly, but in the end the critical voters are the ones who are not inalterably allied to one camp or the other. They will probably react to over playing a hand. Look for Rove and the boys to play this one very carefully and for the Democratic nominee to run away from it as fast as he can. Presidential election years are not the time for a thoughtful search for answers—the peanut gallery does not like ideas that cannot be full expressed in 15 seconds.

19

I am flabbergasted by any possibliity that anyone would base a vote on this.

This whole issue is insane. Has anyone EVER offered up a rational, logical, religion-free reason to deny homosexuals the right to marry? Because all I ever hear is empty vomit about the “sanctity” of marriage between “a man and a woman” and the stink coming off of that crap could knock a buzzard off a shitwagon.

While I understand that lots of people get the willies at the very idea of codifying same sex nookie, it is impossible to believe that anything other than a relatively hardcore religious segment of the population would consider it a make or break issue in choosing a candidate! That’s just stupid, aggressively, appallingly stupid.

20

I am flabbergasted by any possibliity that anyone would base a vote on this.

This whole issue is insane. Has anyone EVER offered up a rational, logical, religion-free reason to deny homosexuals the right to marry? Because all I ever hear is empty vomit about the “sanctity” of marriage between “a man and a woman” and the stink coming off of that crap could knock a buzzard off a shitwagon.

While I understand that lots of people get the willies at the very idea of codifying same sex nookie, it is impossible to believe that anything other than a relatively hardcore religious segment of the population would consider it a make or break issue in choosing a candidate! That’s just stupid, aggressively, appallingly stupid.