IGF CultureWatch

The most interesting thing about Rick Santorum’s responses to questions about gay marriage in New Hampshire may be the fact that they are, in fact, responses.  This is not a subject he brings up on his own — at least not in public forums where he doesn’t have control of the audience.

But in New Hampshire, members of the audience bring the subject up.  More important still, the subject doesn’t just get brought up by lesbians and gay men or their families.  At a high school,

The audience, half students and half local residents, reacted with snorts and applause. The students at Dublin School, which runs from ninth through 12th grade, were primed for Santorum’s visit, said headmaster Brad Bates. He said three students in the audience had gay parents, though they were not among those who asked about the topic.

Those of us old enough to remember back to the 20th Century know how hard it was for us to get gay equality mentioned in public discussions.  While the GOP still has a large contingent of those who’d rather talk about something — anything — else, that’s a luxury these days, at least on the campaign trail in places like New Hampshire.

And you can see why they’re uncomfortable.  Santorum digs in his heels, when asked about equal rights for gays to marry, and insists the subject is polygamy.  To be fair, the questioner frames the subject as the right to happiness, which allows Santorum the easiest way to get to polygamy.

In fact, though, the question is about equality — an explicit constitutional right, not something ephemeral or trivial.  And it looks to me like the audience’s dissatisfaction with Santorum’s obstinacy is based on the fact that that is the way they are viewing the question.

Santorum really doesn’t see this as being about equality for lesbians and gay men.  He believes that marriage is a privilege that government can provide selectively, rather than a right that it is obligated to confer equally.

But that view is no longer unchallenged.  That is what seems to be so frustrating for him.  He expects the references to polygamy to end the argument for everyone else, they way they end it for him.  But he is hearing a different question — about happiness and privileges –than he is being asked.  Polygamy is a different subject, as Jon Rauch has long argued.  It is about the right to marry anyone.  What lesbians and gay men are asking for, and what we have been successful in getting a majority of Americans to understand, is that we just want the right to marry someone.

That is the way these New Hampshire audiences, who are, after all, looking for a Republican to vote for, see the issue.  And I expect there will be more audiences with a similar view of the question in the candidates’ futures.