The Week That Was

The Supreme Court hearings on same-sex marriage this past week brought a flood of media coverage, along with widely reported very positive poll numbers showing that 58% of Americans now favor marriage equality, and some 80% of those ages 18 to 29, including a majority of young Republicans. It feels like a turning point (here’s an analysis by Nate Silver). A growing number of Republicans are realizing they’re on the wrong side of history.

So there’s reason to be reasonably optimistic (i.e., Cato legal analyst: DOMA is dead). The odds, say court-watchers, strongly favor a slim majority overturning DOMA’s prohibition on federal recognition of same-sex marriage (Justice Kennedy, citing federalism, joining the four liberal justices, citing equal protection). The court looks poised to decide it shouldn’t have bothered hearing the California Proposition 8 case, leaving in place the district court ruling restoring marriage equality in the Golden State (one day we may know why they took this one when a majority felt the “standing” of those defending Prop. 8 was so problematic; did Scalia insist he have a chance to express his disdain, again, for the idea of rights for homosexuals?)

The big disappointment for some was the extremely narrow chance that the court, with Kennedy as the swing, might have used Prop. 8 to invalidate all state measures against same-sex marriage; maybe even to have ruled that, as Loving vs. Virginia made mixed-race marriage the law of the land, Hollingsworth v. Perry would do the same for same-sex marriage: legal everywhere. And listening to renowned lawyers Ted Olson and David Bois, who argued for just that, it even seemed believable, for a moment. But that day of full legal equality is now years away.

However: If one year ago gay Americans were participating on a game show and the host said, “Congratulations! You’ve just won the restoration of marriage for gay people in California and, in the bonus round, the elimination of DOMA’s prohibition on federal rights and benefits in those states where same-sex marriage is legal. Now, do you want to risk it all by rolling the dice in the All or Nothing round, with the chance of winning marriage equality throughout the nation, or step back and take your winnings. What will it be?”

I think we’d be very happy to take what we’re (likely) to get, for now. And then continue the hard work for marriage equality, focusing on both parties, tomorrow.

More. I very much liked this rejoinder from a pro-same-sex-marriage Christian, who truly understands the gospel message. But oh, the hateful comments from his reactionary, use-the-state-to-beat-down-the-sinners co-religionists. Jesus weeps.

10 Comments for “The Week That Was”

  1. posted by Jorge on

    However: If one year ago gay Americans were participating on a game show and the host said, “Congratulations! You’ve just won the restoration of marriage for gay people in California and, in the bonus round, the elimination of DOMA’s prohibition on federal rights and benefits in those states where same-sex marriage is legal. Now, do you want to risk it all by rolling the dice in the All or Nothing round, with the chance of winning marriage equality throughout the nation, or step back and take your winnings. What will it be?”

    I think we’d be very happy to take what we’re (likely) to get, for now. And then continue the hard work for marriage equality, focusing on both parties, tomorrow.

    Really? And our Congressional representatives are safe for re-election despite Congress having a less than 10% approval rating. There’s a big difference between what people think and what actually happens in politics… and activism.

    • posted by Houndentenor on

      For some reason, Americans have long had a low opinion of Congress overall but a high opinion of their own representatives. It’s common for a Congressman to run for re-election unopposed. Most districts are “safe”. I understand the confusion of Congress being so unpopular but most of them getting re-elected every two years but that sort of cognitive dissonance is common in our country.

  2. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Well, Stephen, I don’t pretend to understand the game-show analogy you are making — the goal has been “equal means equal” for many years now, both on the political front and in state and federal courts, and nothing has changed in that regard — but this is your first post in a long time that looks in the right direction: “And then continue the hard work for marriage equality, focusing on both parties, tomorrow.

    We’ve had a serious problem in the struggle for “equal means equal” for the last decade, at least, and that is this: Left/liberal gays and lesbians have been hard at work in the Democratic Party for 30-odd years, working turn it toward “equal means equal”, and conservative gays and lesbians have not in the Republican Party.

    We’ve paid a stiff price for that disparity in effort: 30+/- anti-marriage amendments, each of which are going to have to be removed either through laborious political fights, each costing gays and lesbians millions, or through protracted court battles, state by state until SCOTUS issues a 50-state solution.

    We’ve (gays and lesbians of all political stripes who came out to family, friends, neighbors and co-workers, all over the country) won the battle for hearts and minds. But we still have 5-10 years of work ahead of us — “the hard work for marriage equality” to which you refer in your post — before “equal means equal” becomes a fact on the ground. We have much to do, and none of it will be easy.

    I don’t want to make too lofty an analogy, but I was watching Lincoln last night, and I got to thinking about where we are in our struggle.

    I think that we are at the point in our struggle where the nation was during the Civil War when Grant was given overall command of the Union Army, and Grant brought Sherman into command as his right hand. At that point — once the Union finally had generals in place who understood the carnage of modern warfare and relentlessly pursued the goal despite the casualties — the end result was inevitable, given the enormous advantages the Union had over the Confederacy in population and industrial capacity. The Confederacy lost on the day that Lincoln appointed Grant, but — and this is a big “but” — over half the casualties in that bloody war took place after the result was inevitable.

    In my view, the outcome of our struggle is as inevitable, now, as was the Union’s victory after Grant took command. But the cost of our victory — full realization of “equal means equal” — is not yet paid in full, not by a long shot.

    We are going to have to do what Grant and Sherman did, get tough and relentlessly pursue “equal means equal” no matter the cost.

    Left/liberal gays and lesbians are going to have to say to Democratic politicians that we will no longer accept a “straddle” on “equal means equal”. We are going to have to be blunt — if you are not with us and willing to put your political career on the line for equality, you won’t get our support. Period.

    Conservative gays and lesbians are going to have to do likewise. LCR is going to have to get a lot tougher, and never — never — endorse an anti-equality politician like Mitt Romney. GOProud is going to have to get off the dime and get into the fight, instead of dodging the issues. Conservative gays and lesbians are going to have to get involved in politics as politics is played in the real world, as opposed to the Washington cocktail circuit, and work within the Republican Party at county, state and federal levels. And, most importantly, conservative gays and lesbians are going to have to leverage pro-equality conservatives, mostly younger Republicans as you point out, and build a pro-equality force within the Republican Party that has the power to grant or withhold votes, campaign contributions and campaign volunteer time. Conservative gays and lesbians need to be encouraging younger pro-equality conservatives to make equality a priority for separating political sheep from political goats.

    None of this means that Democrats have to start supporting Republicans, or that Republicans have to start supporting Democrats. That has never been the solution, and it won’t be going forward. What is needed is for both sides of the political spectrum to demand, within their own party, that politicians support “equal means equal”.

    And none of this means that any of the LGBT lobbying groups on either side of the political spectrum need to change their focus. Left/liberal LGBT lobbying groups should continue to try to elect pro-equality Democrats, and conservative LGBT lobbying groups should continue to try to elect pro-equality Republicans. If we are going to move both parties, then the work needs to be done within both parties. We have no need for umbrella organizations. What we need are effective organizations on both sides of the political spectrum.

    So join the battle Stephen. Stop complaining about what those of us on the left/liberal side are doing to “keep the Republican Party anti-gay”, and start focusing on the work that needs to be done by conservatives to turn the Republican Party.

  3. posted by Houndentenor on

    Everyone is free to play the pointless parlor game of guessing what the Supremes will do, but the truth is we just don’t know and won’t know until the decision is announced. When it is, we’ll decide where to go from there. There are a lot of possible outcomes, some more likely than others, but speculation, which is what the media seems to prefer over reporting actual news, isn’t really all that helpful. It’s masturbation: it feels good for you, but doesn’t really do anything for anyone else. So, we’ll find out in a few months. I’ll be sure to tune in for the announcement, but until then I’d rather talk about something we can actually do something about.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      It’s masturbation: it feels good for you, but doesn’t really do anything for anyone else.

      Well, you do masturbate, don’t you? 😉

      In defense of the serious media, though, I’d like to point out that discussing the options/outcomes of Supreme Court cases of this magnitude and level of interest is a tremendous educational tool for the public.

      I’ll bet that non-lawyers who followed the NYT, WP and other serious media about the Prop 8 case, in particular, learned a lot that they didn’t know before about the law (e.g. the differences between a reserved powers and an Equal Protection approach to DOMA), the appellate process, and Court processes and procedures.

      To me, that has a value beyond the fun of, uh, speculating.

      The law is something of an arcane art, opaque to most who haven’t had a legal education, and cases like this can help fill the knowledge gap.

      • posted by Houndentenor on

        That’s something else. A panel of legal experts explaining what was going on in the arguments, since frankly only a few dozen people really understand that happens at that level, is useful. For those of us who don’t have such insight, it’s a big waste of time. What’s funny is this pretense that what I think the court should do matters. At this point the court is going to make a decision and we’ll all deal with the fallout from that, whatever it is.

        and yes, of course I masturbate. I just don’t suffer under the delusion that it does anything for anyone else.

  4. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Nate Silver’s analysis reveals both the challenge and the importance of turning the Republican Party.

    According to the “Projected Support for Same-Sex Marriage in Ballot Initiative” table (an approximation of predicted voter support for marriage equality) contained in Silver’s analysis:

    (1) Republican-base states are overwhelmingly anti-equality at present, while Democratic-base states are overwhelmingly pro-equality. All of the top 20 pro-equality states voted for President Obama in 2012, while all of the bottom 20 states vote for Governor Romney. Of the middle 10 states, the split was 8-2 in favor of President Obama.

    (2) The “lead time” for change in the Republican-base states is significant. According to Silver’s projections, 19 of the 20 states will remain anti-equality through the 2016 election cycle, and 6 through the 2020 election cycle.

    I think that the Silver projections suggest several things:

    (1) The job of “turning” the Republican Party (that is, lessening the stranglehold of social conservatives on the Republican primary process to the point where pro-equality conservatives can run in general elections, will not be quick or easy. The Republican-base states will remain strongly anti-equality, for the most part, in 2016, driven, in part, by “new message” Republicans like Mike Huckabee, who may be a model for Republican messaging about gays and lesbians but who also flat-out threatened to “pull the base” earlier this week if the Republican Party changed its anti-equality positions. Pro-equality conservatives should focus on building toward 2020.

    (2) Because social conservatism has a high correlation with religious conservatism, and because Republican-base states have relatively high percentages of religious conservatives, pro-equality conservatives (at this point, mostly those of a libertarian bent) will need to develop a way to speak to religious conservatives in religious metaphor if they are to lessen their opposition to equality. Stephen has often made this point with respect to left/liberal gays and lesbians, but we are not in play in the Republican Party, so it is moot. But Stephen’s underlying point is important, and libertarian-minded conservatives like Stephen should listen to themselves when thinking about how to turn the Republican Party. Libertarian arguments won’t work any better than liberal arguments. What will count is moral arguments, arguments based in Gospel. Pro-equality conservatives will probably need to form alliances with young religious conservatives to develop this messaging, since few libertarian-minded Republicans are religious conservatives.

    (3) Pro-equality Republicans should work to ensure that the Republican Party in Democratic-base states become pro-equality, opening a path for a pro-equality or “moderate” Republican to win the nomination for President in 2016. We are, I think, seeing the clear results of the “anti-equality litmus test” imposed by the Republican Party on Supreme Court nominees. We aren’t going to get to “equal means equal” without a Loving decision down the road, and we aren’t going to get a Loving decision out of the likes of Scalia, Thomas, Alito and (probably) Roberts. Pro-equality conservatives should work toward a President who will not impose the litmus test.

    • posted by Houndentenor on

      At some point Republicans will figure out that they are supporting losing ideas. But that often takes awhile because most partisans (i.e. primary voters) live in a bubble where their views are in the majority and they don’t believe the polls that tell them different. It takes more than 1-2 lost elections to give up on long-cherished ideals, wrong-headed as they may be.

      • posted by Tom Scharbach on

        But that often takes awhile because most partisans (i.e. primary voters) live in a bubble where their views are in the majority …

        … and in state Assembly/Senate and Congressional districts set up to keep their seats “safe”, leading them to hew more closely to the views of the party primary base than they might if they weren’t “safe” in the general election. Very few legislators compete in “swing” districts. I think that this is a reason why the parties are polarizing.

  5. posted by Kosh III on

    The big disappointment for some was the extremely narrow chance that the court, with Kennedy as the swing, might have used Prop. 8 to invalidate all state measures against same-sex marriage;….But that day of full legal equality is now years away.”

    So for those of us who live in “conservative” states like Tennessee, the only thing that will change is that these fascist theocrats will INCREASE they attacks on equal rights and we will continue to have the special right of being an inferior 3/5th citizen.

Comments are closed.