In addition to the studies showing growing support for marriage equality that Jonathan Rauch notes below, according to the latest polling by the highly regarded and nonpartisan Pew Research Center, about as many adults now favor (45%) as oppose (46%) allowing gays and lesbians to marry legally. Last year opponents outnumbered supporters 48% to 42%. Opposition to same-sex marriage has declined by 19 percentage points since 1996, when 65% opposed gay marriage and only 27% were in favor.
But GOP leaders, with the marked exception of Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels, continue to place their bets on wooing the anti-gay right. As for Daniels, the latest Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll “appears to vindicate his repeated insistence that the country needs a ‘truce’ on fights over social issues while it grapples with its mounting economic challenges.” The Journal adds:
Nearly two thirds of Republican primary voters said they would be “more likely” to vote for a GOP primary candidate who says the party should focus more on the economy and the deficit and less on social issues such as gay marriage and abortion. Only 8% said they would be less likely to vote for such a candidate. The rest said they were unsure.
Yet this week House Speaker John Boehner announced he will be spearheading a congressional effort to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing state-sanctioned same-sex marriages. Once again, the GOP ensures it doesn’t miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
13 Comments for “Gay Marriage Support Jumps; GOP Puts Hands over Ears”
posted by Tom on
Yet this week House Speaker John Boehner announced he will be spearheading a congressional effort to defend the Defense of Marriage Act, which prohibits the federal government from recognizing state-sanctioned same-sex marriages. Once again, the GOP ensures it doesn’t miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.
Well, that’s certainly true.
But in Wyoming, where constitutional conservatives still exist in the legislature, the State Senate killed both a bill to put an anti-marriage amendment to the voters and a bill to ban recognition of valid out-of-state marriages in Wyoming.
It was refreshing, to say the least, to see a Republican-dominated legislature tell the social conservatives where to put it.
Boehner is a dinosaur, and DOMA defense is going to be a replay of DADT defense — a losing proposition that makes the Republicans look trenchant and obdurate, yet again.
posted by BobN on
Let’s not get too excited about what happened in Wyoming. It’s not like they decided to accept us or even to leave things as they were. They decided to not utterly dump on for a change.
posted by Carl on
I read somewhere that some legislators killed the bill in Wyoming because it wasn’t extreme enough. I’m not sure.
posted by Jorge on
Well, let’s look at the potential presidential candidates for a bit. We have the true social conservative believers, the ones who either pander or have no problems governing as anti-gay marriage conservatives, and the ones who are against gay marriage but don’t mention it until the issue reaches them.
Most of them are multi-talented and can provide a Republican alternative to President Obama on many issues at least passing well. Huckabee in particular would be a very serious contender in the primary. Remember also that Huckabee as well as a few others in opposition to Obama like Glenn Beck know how to talk about the economy convincingly as a moral issue. So even if none of the social conservatives are front-runners in the primary, I wouldn’t underestimate them in the general election. The fact that most people think the economy is most important can be a double-edged sword.
posted by Jorge on
Anyway, that principle might apply to other elected positions as well. Be a little skeptical.
posted by Tom on
I’ll be curious to see how the presidential primaries work out in this respect, Jorge. I continue to believe that the social conservatives, who comprise about 40% of the base, will be a significant factor in the candidate selection process, particularly in Iowa and New Hampshire.
The indications are that the social conservatives are spoiling for a fight on marriage equality.
Meanwhile, though, independent voters, who are the key to the general election, seem to be moving toward acceptance of marriage equality faster than the general population (note that the Pew Poll showed an 8% change in the general populace, but a 13% change among independents).
If the social conservative portion of the base pushes otherwise sensible candidates (Tim Pawlenty, for example) into hard-core pandering (reinstating DADT, for example), it might spell real problems for Republicans in the 2012 general election.
I think that all the talk about a “truce” is just talk. Social conservatives have pushed the Republican Party into anti-gay legislation in quite a number of states at this point, despite the “its all about jobs, stupid” rhetoric.
posted by Carl on
It definitely seems to just be talk. How much time has the new Congress spent on social issues? If the GOP is so worried about spending money then why are they going to waste money on this counsel?
But those who support gay marriage or who at least don’t see it as a major issue are much less vocal and much less successful than those who strongly oppose. They hold the money and the sway and get results.
So Speaker Boehner can use this as a wedge issue, and many in his party will either support the ban or they will say Obama was out of line and they will defend the ban by saying it’s anti-Obama. And those who have an issue with it will continue to be in the minority.
posted by Tom on
But those who support gay marriage or who at least don’t see it as a major issue are much less vocal and much less successful than those who strongly oppose. They hold the money and the sway and get results.
Carl, you’ve got to keep in mind that these things take time.
In 1967, a friend and I were grilled by police in southern Indiana for several hours about sodomy (a felony at the time in Indiana), because the police wanted us out of town and it was a convenient way to scare the hell out of us in their view. It took 33 years before sodomy was decriminalized nationally and the threat of sodomy prosecution could no longer be used to control gays and lesbians.
The fight for marriage started in the 1990’s. We are about 20 years into the fight. We will not prevail, in all likelihood, for another 10-15 years.
Yes, it is true that the anti-gay forces “hold the money and the sway and get results”, certainly so within the Republican Party.
Yes, it is true that marriage equality support among so-called “straight allies” is not a priority issue for them.
Yes, it is true that it is going to take a long time, and many legislative battles and court decisions, before the anti-marriage amendments are wiped away and marriage equality prevails across the nation.
Yes, it is true that there will be future setbacks.
And yes, it is true that when anti-gay money and activism couple with Republican Party political interest, we get set back, as happened in 2003-2005.
But it is also true that we are steadily, if slowly, gaining.
If you look at the first of the two scattershot polls Jon linked to at Huffington, you’ll see that the trend line toward acceptance broke in 2003-2005, when the anti-gay forces and Republican politicians from the President on down the food chain combined to use the anti-marriage amendments to strengthen Republican election prospects.
But if you look closely, you’ll see something else.
If you extrapolate the trend lines from 1985 to 2003 forward to 2011, ignoring the 2003-2005 setback, you’ll see that we are almost exactly at a point that the trend line would have been had the Republicans and anti-gay forces NOT combined to use gays and lesbians as political fodder in the 2004 elections.
So I would not be discouraged. Marriage discrimination is going to end, notwithstanding all “the money and sway” of NOM and similar groups, and notwithstanding continued political opportunism by the Republican Party.
Marriage equality will prevail because this is a fight that is being waged on the ground, block by block, family by family, neighborhood by neighborhood.
All the television and radio ads in the world — all the money, all the lies, all the slick Madison Avenue ads — can’t hold a candle, in the long run, to ordinary folks, one by one, thinking about the issues in terms of their gay and lesbian family members, friends, neighbors and co-workers.
posted by Wilberforce on
For me, this is good and bad. It’s great that the numbers are changing. It’s bad that this could still be used as a wedge issue. The country has got other problems far more important than gay marraige.
If I had had my way, we would have followed the polls and went for civil unions, then used video of suburban couples and gay soldiers as pr to build support for enda.
But the self destrctive crowd still control our agenda. They must have seen the polls and immediately demanded something they knew they couldn’t get, risking a backlash against our allies. On the other hand, the risk probably never occured to the it’s all about me crowd.
posted by Carl on
I think that in some ways suburban couples and gay soldiers scare some even more, because they don’t want gays to be normal, they prefer the idea of the stereotype.
I also think gay marriage was too much too soon but I remember how the social conservatives drilled in the idea that civil unions – or any benefits at all – were the same as marriage. They wanted to set up civil unions as being just as big a bogeyman as marriage. I think that in some ways gay marriage made civil unions more palatable to people.
posted by Houndentenor on
Yes, out gay people threaten the culture of institutionalized hypocrisy. We should all pretend to be Ward and June Cleaver no matter what we are really doing. Look how many advocates of social conservatism get caught in scandalous affairs or with prostituted (male or female). Even they don’t live by the standards they want to impose on everyone else. Those who refuse to live the lie are a threat to the illusion of “normalcy.”
posted by Jorge on
Even they don’t live by the standards they want to impose on everyone else.
They live by them a lot better than everyone else does.
posted by Hunter on
The problem with the incrementalist approach is that if you don’t push for more, you’ll get less than your fall-back. It’s only by pushing for marriage that we get anything. As Carl pointed out, civil unions came to be seen as an acceptable compromise, but no one’s under any illusions that they are an ultimate goal, because marriage is now part of the debate. If we had pushed for civil unions, we would have gotten next to zip, called it “civil unions,” and people would have said “OK, that’s done.” (Here in Illinois, where we just got CUs, both the right and the left are quite plainly saying “That’s just the first step.”)