Marriage: A 2016 Non-Issue?

Don’t look for culture war arguments in Campaign 2016, says Michael Barone:

I don’t think you’ll hear much about it in the 2016 campaign. The reason is that opinion on it cuts across party lines. More than any other issue I can remember, it splits Americans along lines of age. Elderly voters tend to oppose it, though by significantly smaller margins than in the past. Young voters tend to favor it by increasingly large majorities.

Most Democratic politicians favor same-sex marriage. But they don’t want to risk losing the support of elderly and many churchgoing black voters who oppose it but would otherwise support them. Most Republican politicians oppose it. But they want the votes of many Millennial generation voters who consider it a no-brainer. These splits affect primary as well as general election electorates.

So both parties are in the position of the legendary old-time politician who said, “Some of my friends are for the bill and some of my friend are against the bill, and I’m always with my friends.”

While obviously liberal Democrats have been readier to support marriage equality than conservative Republicans, few would have predicted the general silence from the mainstream GOP on this issue as of late.

20 Comments for “Marriage: A 2016 Non-Issue?”

  1. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Barone: The culture wars have shaped our political alignments, but they don’t seem likely to dominate the political dialogue in 2016.

    The bottom line is that the only voters who put same-sex marriage at or anywhere near the top of the list as a voting are (1) progressive gays and lesbians, along with close allies, and (2) hard-core, conservative Christians. The former comprise about 2-3% of the voting population, and vote Democrat, period. The latter comprise about 10-15% of the voting population, and vote Republican.

    No way is a fight over same-sex marriage going to dominate the political dialogue in 2016. The Democrats will continue to support marriage equality, and the Republicans will issue statements to the effect that they personally support “traditional marriage” but (to paraphase Wisconsin’s Governor Walker) “for us, its over”.

    The “culture wars” over same-sex marriage will shift into code issues, just as “segregation today, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever” morphed into busing and school vouchers. In the case of same-sex marriage, the coding has already coalesce around “religious freedom”, which is code for “not now, not for us”.

    It isn’t surprising. As an code issue, it has everything going for it.

    Religious conservatives can bang the drums of fear about “boxcars”, and play themselves as victims. So-called “libertarians” can occupy the high ground of “liberty and freedom”. Both can play up the “intolerance” of gays and lesbians, can talk about “payback”, and can carry on about vicious and vile gays and lesbians, and so on. Read what’s being said right now about “religious freedom” as a code issue, and you’ll hear it loud and clear. Nothing has changed, much, except that it isn’t marriage equality now that will lead to “a rapid downward spiral of our nation, including our economy”, but gay and lesbian “intolerance” of Christians.

    It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know where this is heading in 2016.

    Barone: Most Democratic politicians favor same-sex marriage. But they don’t want to risk losing the support of elderly and many churchgoing black voters who oppose it but would otherwise support them.

    I don’t know where Barone lives, but that isn’t true in Wisconsin. Congresswoman Gwen Moore, who is African-American and who represents a mixed race but predominantly African-American district, is a outspoken advocate of marriage equality, and has been for years. As far as I know, every single African-American holding state-level office in Wisconsin is an advocate of marriage equality. I don’t track the local office holders, but I doubt that the picture is a lot different on the local level.

    I don’t know why Democratic candidates don’t fear “churchgoing black voters”, while Republican candidates quake in front of white Evangelicals, but they don’t. Perhaps the reason is that “churchgoing black voters” know exactly what the voter suppression efforts of the Republican Party are all about, are determined to vote come hell or high water, and vote Democrat.

    • posted by Jorge on

      I think Barone is reasonable most of the time, but if what you say is true…

      If Democrats aren’t afraid of churchgoing black voters on gay marriage, I think it would be because their influence and passion has already been measured.

      The thing that many people on the right don’t realize about the Black (and probably Hispanic) religious conservative left is that they only favor big government on economic issues. African Americans by and large do not believe in legislating morality. Their long history as targets of government sponsored racism, the pre-Civil Rights Era rise of the Black intelligentia*, and their now longstanding practice of overturning racism through grass-roots movements, are in many ways antithetical to the idea fighting the culture war through public policy channels.

      *: People write of the post-Civil Rights Era collapse of the black middle class, but I’m not sure enough of my history to say there was a pre-Civil Rights Era rise of the black Middle Class.

  2. posted by Kosh III on

    Barone may be correct about being a non-issue in NY LA and DC but it’s not gone away in the conservative paradise of Red States, nor does it appear to be any less of an issue with GOP “leaders.” The Republican AG here is fighting in the Courts to keep discriminatory laws.

  3. posted by Houndentenor on

    It’s obvious that most of these pundits as well as most gay conservatives live in deep blue parts of the country where Republicans aren’t all that concerned about social issues. They should spend some time in the Republican dominated parts of the country. Out here in “real America” the feelings on this issue are very strong. The big cities and the blue states may have moved on but the red states have most certainly not and it’s delusional to think they have. I don’t doubt that most of the GOP leadership doesn’t care about this issue and never did except to pander to the religious right, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is going to be an issue that GOP candidates for president will have to face in at least half the primaries and that being pro-gay or even neutral will be a deal-breaker in most of the primaries while being an albatross for the nominee in the general election.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      I don’t doubt that most of the GOP leadership doesn’t care about this issue and never did except to pander to the religious right, but that doesn’t change the fact that this is going to be an issue that GOP candidates for president will have to face in at least half the primaries and that being pro-gay or even neutral will be a deal-breaker in most of the primaries while being an albatross for the nominee in the general election.

      I generally agree with this assessment, with a couple of caveats:

      (1) I think that the Walker formula (“I am a strong supporter of traditional marriage, but, for us, now that the activist Supreme Court has made homosexual marriage the law of the land, that fight is over.”) will be the watchword for all (or almost all) of the Republican candidates in 2016. I don’t expect much variance from that formula for the reasons you’ve stated so well.

      (2) I think that the homosexual marriage issue will morph into code about “activist courts” and “religious freedom”, for the reasons I’ve stated in my earlier comment. In my view, the so-called “religious freedom” issue is as much a bullshit issue as was homosexual marriage over the last decade, not to mention the “activist judges” issue, but the so-called “religious freedom” issue has legs, I think, because it so easily allows gay-bashing comfort food (e.g. “gays want payback”) to be fed to the social conservative base.

      • posted by Houndentenor on

        Agreed on all counts. The fact that politicians say things and vote for things they don’t actually believe in is for all practical purposes irrelevant because those things are said and those laws and enacted and have the same affects regardless of the intent. As for coding, there are countless examples of this included the now-deceased “I’m for equal rights but not special rights” always uttered by politicians who weren’t actually for equal rights at all (and exploiting the public’s ignorance that nondiscrimination laws didn’t actually apply to gay people). But I actually think at least half of the GOP candidates running for president will have gay marriage front and center unless the Supreme Court has already intervened by that time (which could happen). Otherwise it’s just wishful thinking on the part of Stephen and others. Honestly, I think they and so many other gay Republicans live in a social world of people not unlike David Koch who are conservatives in some matters (defense, regulations, taxes) but liberal on social issues. In that bubble it’s easy to dismiss the religious right as a fringe group with little real influence. For those of us who live in areas where that “fringe” dominates all politics (to the point that Democrats hardly bother running candidates) that is clearly a dangerously naive point of view. That crowd has thought they could use and manipulate the religious right for their own purposes for decades now and can’t seem to allow themselves to believe that they run most of the state Republican parties now. They haven’t been able to get one off their own nominated so far but I think they are really gunning for 2016 to make that happen. I hope it doesn’t. I know a lot of Democrats hope for a far right candidate thinking he (or she) would be easy to beat in the general election but the very idea that someone that extreme could have any change of being elected scares the crap out of me.

        • posted by Tom Scharbach on

          I think you are right about the bright line drawn in the Republican primaries depending on whether or not the Supreme Court has ruled before the primaries are underway. My thoughts on the “Walker strategy” assume that the Supreme Court will decide on marriage equality by June 2015.

          That might not happen. The time remaining for the Supreme Court to rule this term is drawing short. If the Court doesn’t grant cert and schedule the cases for argument by the January 23 conference, the chances are good that the cases will not be heard this term, and we could be looking into 2016 for a decision.

          If that happens, all bets are off about what will happen in the Republican primaries. My guess is, like yours, that all hell will break loose around the marriage issue.

          But I still think that the chances are good that the Court will hear the cases this term. If that happens, marriage equality itself will be off the table as an issue, and the Republican candidates can move to more comfortable ground, discriminating against gays and lesbians in other ways, on other grounds, an issue that will unite so-called “libertarians” and social conservatives.

          • posted by Houndentenor on

            I realize that the “serious” candidates like Jeb Bush will try to sidestep the issue as much as possible but they won’t be the only one’s on stage in those primaries. In areas where the Teavangelicals rule, the 2014 primaries were a race to see who could make the most mean-spirited anti-gay statements. I think this is a huge headache for the national party and while I do sense a bit of Schadenfreude because that will be a problem for whoever gets the nomination (as misogynistic statements from other candidates even for House seats and statewide races were for Romney in 2012), I think that hearing such nasty anti-gay bigotry is horrible for a lot of gay people, especially the younger ones who hear their parents cheering on the nutjobs. I hope Stephen is right and we’ll be beyond this in a couple of years but as my hometown didn’t desegregate until 15 years after Brown, I don’t share any optimism that just because an issue is “settled” that the religious right will decide to move on.

        • posted by Tom Jefferson 3rd on

          I saw a political cartoon about the relationship between libertarians and the Republican Party.

          The Republican Party representative goes on about how the party is very much opposed to what libertarians — of the LP/Objective bent — generally claim to support…….but…..the GOP will gladly support a tax cut. This prompts the libertarian representative in the cartoon to pretty much overlook the party’s views on abortion, gay marriage, civil liberties, foreign policy and the like.

          I think that sometimes that this cartoon is pretty accurate to the situation of a great many libertarian minded folk.

      • posted by Tom Scharbach on

        In one of those delicious little ironies of life, NOM is fundraising off of David Koch’s recent statement that he personally supports marriage equality.

        The irony, of course, is that self-described “libertarian” Koch funded dozens of anti-equality Republican candidates in the last few election cycles, including Wisconsin’s Scott Walker, and has no intention of stopping that practice in future election cycles, if statements in his interview are accurate.

  4. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    A Supreme Court update:

    The Supreme Court has scheduled the following petitions for January 9, 2015 conference: (1) Robicheaux v. George (Louisiana – 5th Circuit), Bourke v. Beshear (Kentucky – 6th Circuit), and DeBoer v. Snyder (Michigan – 6th Circuit).

    Tanco v. Haslam (Tennessee) and Obergefell v. Hodges (Ohio), which are also appeals from the 6th Circuit, are not yet scheduled for conference. I’m not sure why, although looking at the filings to date, it looks to me like the three scheduled cases have all the required petitions and responses filed, but the two not yet schedule still have required responses outstanding.

  5. posted by clayton on

    Bobby Jindal. Mike Huckabee. Rick Santorum. Butch Otter. All mainstream Republicans. Three will probably run in the Republican primaries. None gmhas been silent about same-sex marriage.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      I can’t see anyone on the list of likely “serious” contenders (Bush, Christie, Cruz, Huckabee, Jindal, Kasich, Paul, Perry, Romney, Rubio, Ryan, Santorum, Walker) who doesn’t have a long record of supporting “traditional marriage” or who has signaled any movement toward an “I’ve evolved …” moment.

      Marriage equality itself might be removed from the table by the Supreme Court before the Republican primaries, but don’t count on gays and lesbians as an issue being off the table. My guess is that the lot of them will be falling all over themselves on the so-called “religious freedom” issue. Same Emperor, different clothes.

      • posted by Jorge on

        Bu-bu-buuuut, Romney had binders full of women! (Whoops, wrong quote.) Rick Santorum said he has gay friends. And Ron Paul was against the Federal Marriage Amendment.

      • posted by Jorge on

        And how did Rick Santorum suddenly become a serious contender (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah baby…!)?

      • posted by Tom Scharbach on

        And Ron Paul was against the Federal Marriage Amendment.

        Well, Ron ain’t running. And while he opposed the FMA, he was a sponsor and strong proponent for the Marriage Protection Act which, had it become law, would have removed jurisdiction of the federal courts over cases involving sexual orientation or practices (think Lawrence), or marriage (think, well, think of a lot of recent cases).

        I’m assuming that you pulled a brain fart and really meant Rand. I do that sometimes. But Rand ain’t nothing much, and he seems to be cut from the same cloth, if his statement last March on the Kentucky court ruling is any indication:

        “I believe in the historic and religious definition of marriage. I also believe this power belongs to the states and the people, not the federal government. It is illegitimate for the federal courts to intrude here.”

        It is “illegitimate” for the federal courts to decide matters of constitutional law when it comes to marriage? Not since Madison v. Marbury.

        And how did Rick Santorum suddenly become a serious contender (yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah baby…!)?

        It was just a list of politicians who are typically mentioned as contenders, leaving off the nutcases like Ben Carson and Donald Trump. I can easily move Santorum from one list to the other. I can think of two or three others I’d move over the the nutcase list, too, but I’m not going to be voting in the Republican primaries, so its not my call.

      • posted by Mike Alexander on

        “I can’t see anyone on the list of likely “serious” contenders”

        And it’s not a question of whether they are serious contenders, it’s a question of whether or not the culture war are going to be an issue. If any of those on that list do run, and i think most if not all will, they will make it an issue.

        In 2012, few expected the return of abortion as a huge issue…. But it did.

        The inclusion of Rand Paul is going to make the Republican fight very interesting. I’m still waiting to see if the Dems can manage to have someone in their ranks who is also contrary to the more comfortable party line.

  6. posted by Tom Jefferson 3rd on

    1. It is not a ‘non-issue’, because who sits in the White House or the Senate will impact federal policy and, yes, the federal courts. The major party candidates may rather not talk about the issue too much publicly, but that does not mean that is not an issue.

    2. I have no idea what the minor party presidential candidates may say — or prospective major party candidates without the resources to get the party nod (let alone be a player in the general election). They may be more willing to come out in favor of marriage equality or come out against the ‘gay agenda’.

    3. Their is also some practical limits as to what a President elect can actually do in terms of marriage equality. President Obama has made important progress in this regard, but substantive Congressional action in favor of marriage equality is probably not going to happen anytime soon.

  7. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Good news from Florida (11th Circuit). The Supreme Court denied Florida’s petition for a stay this evening. Absent further complications, that means that marriages will begin in Florida on January 6. A caveat: The Florida Association of County Clerks issued and advisory to County Clerks throughout the state to the effect that the federal court ruling is or may be applicable only in Jackson County, so there might well be some confusion and/or further action before licenses are issued throughout the state.

  8. posted by Tom Jefferson 3rd on

    All of the self-identified libertarians elected to the U.S. Congress have generally taken the non-libertarian position (probably to appeal to the far right) that the 14th Amendment does not exist.

    They don’t believe that the 14th Amendment applies to the Federal Bill of Rights to the States, they don’t believe in any Constitutional privacy protections and do not seem to feel that the court really should deal with cases of equal protection/due process of the law….

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