First published on Nov. 10, 2004, in the Chicago Free Press.
People who like to read post-election analyses of the voting, the campaigns, candidates, exit polls, etc., are no doubt heartily sick of them. People who don't care about post-election analyses won't read any at all, including any offered here. So let's move on.
Clearly we gays and lesbians present a problem for the Democrats - and for the Republicans. Here's why.
We are a problem for the Democrats because they need to continue receiving the large percentage (75-77 percent) of gay votes in presidential races (lower in congressional races). The gay vote (4 percent) was larger than Asians (2 percent) or Jews (3 percent) and two-thirds as large as the Latino vote (6 percent).
And they need gay campaign contributions. Gays contributed copiously first to the Dean and then to the Kerry campaigns. Figures are hard to come by, but it seems safe to say that given what we know about the economic profiles of minority communities, it is likely that gays contributed more money than either African-Americans or Latinos.
Further, Democrats need gays in order to retain their status as liberal or progressive. But equally important, nothing gays want - marriage/civil unions, military access, employment nondiscrimination - requires significant government expenditure, so in a time of huge budget deficits, doling out small doses of equality for gays is a cheap way to act progressive.
So the Democrats can hardly afford to dump gays from their coalition or continue to de-emphasize them the way Kerry did during the convention and campaign. Gays might put up with that once, accepting the tactical rationale. But even gay Democratic Party functionaries must have chafed at the ignoring of gay issues, and excuses will become unacceptable, particularly since Kerry lost anyway.
But gays are a problem for the Republicans as well. That is because there has been and continues to be a growing tolerance of gays and gay relationships, a tolerance that gradually transforms itself into acceptance - and then, with respect to gay-related policies - approval.
Support for gays in the military keeps increasing. Support for gay marriage stands at 25 percent and for civil unions 35 percent for a total of 60 percent who support recognition of gay relationships. Support for nondiscrimination laws approaches 80 percent.
The reasons are too well-known to do more than list: Ongoing coming out by gays, high rates of acceptance by young people, the growth of partnership benefits in private industry, the visibility of viewer-friendly gays in popular culture, gay gains internationally and growing acceptance in some U.S. religions.
This means that overt homophobia by the GOP will have a diminishing appeal, so the GOP will find itself forced to defend a steadily shrinking range of anti-gay positions. As this column repeatedly reminds people, culture shapes politics, not the other way around.
Less than a decade ago, in 1996 Bob Dole returned a check from the Log Cabin Republicans. In 2000 Bush said nothing about civil unions. But by 2004 although Bush opposed gay marriage, without actually endorsing civil unions he twice said they would be OK if states wanted them. Is there a consistent direction of movement here? GOP political strategists can read polls, too.
Still, coping with gays will not be easy for either party. There seems to be a view among pundits that to remain competitive Democrats need to talk more about values, virtues, morality. If so, fine. Most of us are for those things, too. But Democrats will need to find a way to talk about them in ways that include gays and gay relationships: tolerance, a culture of civility, respect for individual differences and the right of all citizens for an equal chance at happiness.
And Republicans surely know that if they want to appeal to increasingly gay-friendly voters but retain evangelicals, they need to learn to talk of respect for all citizens, neighborliness, promoting the productive contributions each citizen can make, freedom from government obstacles to happiness and the social value of stable relationships.
These languages are not very different. And both are emphatically American.
Let me conclude with a speculation about that 4 percent of the vote that was gay (or GLB). Assume that both 2000 and 2004 results were 4 percent. Note that the popular vote increased from 105 million in 2000 to 115 million in 2004, an increase of 10 percent, including an apparent 10 percent more gay voters.
But if you assume, as I do, that the (openly) gay vote is reasonably well-educated and politically alert and have already been voting in fairly high percentages, then the apparent increase of gay voters is at least partly attributable to an increase in the number of gays and lesbians who acknowledged being gay. No doubt that trend will continue.
And a final thought: How can fundamentalists and pseudo-scientific "researchers" continue to claim that gays are only 1 to 2 percent of the population when just the openly gay vote is 4 percent? That would mean every openly gay person must be voting two to four times.