There’s going to be a certain amount of last-ditch intransigence to marriage equality, especially in the deep South, as personified by Alabama State Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore, among others. As the New York Times reports, “Republican state legislators in Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas have introduced bills this year that would prohibit state or local government employees from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, despite federal court rulings declaring bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional.”
This smacks of desperation, and a last-gasp effort to incite the base. But marriage equality is not abortion; the freedom to marry does not involve ending the life of an unborn child. Hundreds of thousands will not march on Washington in protest, year after year.
The fact that so many GOP leaders are talking about accepting the appellate rulings (and, by extension, the upcoming Supreme Court decision) and moving on is testament to that. And, as the Huffington Post notes, even Conservatives At Iowa Freedom Summit Would Rather Not Talk About Gay Marriage. Many of them, at any rate. They know it’s over.
Mike Huckabee and and Judge Moore are outliers. It will pass. In the meantime, this is certainly an interesting response.
19 Comments for “Endgame, with Residual Resistance”
posted by Doug on
Evangelicals not wanting to talk about marriage equality in no way signifies acceptance of court rulings They are only keeping quite until they can get elected then things will change and they will go on the attack. To believe otherwise is naive.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
I would agree with Doug — at least initially. In reading up on history, I see that “lets talk about something else, until we get elected and can lance that something else” is a common electoral
tactic of a great many religious fundamentalists with certain earthly desires — i.e. power and money and glory.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
The fact that so many GOP leaders are talking about accepting the appellate rulings (and, by extension, the upcoming Supreme Court decision) and moving on is testament to that. And, as the Huffington Post notes, even Conservatives At Iowa Freedom Summit Would Rather Not Talk About Gay Marriage. Many of them, at any rate. They know it’s over.
I suspect that almost all Republican candidates for president have enough political cunning to know that deploying outright, unvarnished opposition to marriage equality as a major campaign theme will cost Republicans the White House in 2016.
Even Rick Santorum, who centered his 2012 primary campaign around “family values” — opposition to marriage equality, abortion and contraception — is now back-tracking, saying that his 2012 campaign centered around “crazy stuff that doesn’t have anything to do with anything” and blaming himself for allowing his campaign to focus on “dumb things.” This time, he vows, he will run a campaign that “addresses and cares about the people who are losing hope” — poverty and income inequality, repealing the ACA, eliminating Common Core, saving us from ISIS, and so on. “God, Guns and Gays” is morphing into ABG — anything but gays.
So I’m not surprised that the Iowa Freedom Summit didn’t turn into a tub-thumping revival centered around rolling back marriage equality.
But silence isn’t support (statements that Americans should “respect the rule of law”, as monumental as they might seem to Republicans, contain not a whiff of support for marriage equality), silence does not “signify acceptance” (as Doug pointed out), and silence does not mean that the Republican presidential field won’t have to find a way to keep the base in the tent.
A few will be more bold than others in appealing to the base. Huckabee will push and shove on nullification-hinting sound bites, Cruz will call for a constitutional amendment to leave marriage to the states, and Jindal will call for a constitutional amendment banning marriage equality nationwide.
But mostly — from the “new moderates” — we will hear lots and lots of dog-whistles, signals sent to the base but largely inaudible to the general population. We will, I suspect, hear a lot about “religious freedom” and “respecting the rights of all Americans”, we will hear a lot about “unelected judges”, and we will hear a lot about “judges who respect the rule of law”. The base will get the message, even if the general population doesn’t.
The dog whistles will be amplified by red-hot denciations from surrogates and outrunners not directly tied to the candidates. If you think we’ve heard the last of attacks on gays and lesbians as “poor winners”, “intolerant”, “authoritarian”, “thugs”, “anti-Christian” and worse (Hitler-like, Robspierre-like, el Quada-like and/or ISIS-like), think again. What the candidates cannot say and hope to win in the general election, others will say for them, keeping the dream alive for the lover angels of the conservative Christian base.
All of that is just talk. Gays and lesbians, who were demonized as part of the Bush/Rove anti-marriage strategy a decade ago, can shrug it off.
The rub is that the Supreme Court is likely to rule for marriage equality in June. The conservative Christian base will want something in the way of active resistance, however symbolic and futile in the long run, and Republicans will have to provide or lose the base. Republicans know that, and are responding.
In the deep-seg states (Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas, perhaps one or two more), “last-ditch intransigence” (as Stephen describes it) will be evidenced by calls for outright defiance, laws to refuse pay to public officials who obey the law, laws putting an end to courthouse marriages of any kind, and so on. In the other states, “religious freedom” — allowing conservative Christians to discriminate against gays and lesbians, but only gays and lesbians — will be the ticket to the heart of the base. By my count, “religious freedom” bills have been enrolled in about 11 states at this point, and we can expect more to come.
The “no pay, no way” legislation is almost certain to go nowhere, even in the deepest of the deep-seg states. I don’t worry about it at all. The “religious freedom” bills are another matter altogether. The “religious freedom” bills will provide a vehicle for the surrogates and outrunners to whip up a storm of resentment against gays and lesbians. We have no realistic choice, it seems to me, but to resist enactment of laws that single out gays and lesbians for special discrimination, but the fight may get ugly and will certainly be expensive. In a year or two, the fever will pass, and the country will be content with a balanced accommodation protecting religious freedom and marriage equality (a balance I would say now exists), as it is with respect to African-Americans, women and others.
And then we will face the real danger — a change in judicial philosophy on the Supreme Court as Justices Breyer, Ginsburg, Kennedy and Scalia leave the Court and are replaced over the next decade. We can reasonably assume that a Democratic president will nominate justices like Justice Kagan and Sotomayor, and that a Republican president will nominate justices like Justice Alito and Chief Justice Roberts. Justices serve a long time — Justices nominated since 1970 have served 20-25 years — and a shift in judicial philosophy relating to equal protection and the “right to be left alone” penumbra will have long-term implications for “equal means equal”. Depending on who is nominated by whom, we may see “equal means equal” solidified in future decisions, or we may see “equal means equal” eroded.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
“Republican state legislators in Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas have introduced bills this year that would prohibit state or local government employees from issuing marriage licenses to gay couples, despite federal court rulings declaring bans on same-sex marriage unconstitutional.”
The Washington Blade listed a number of the bills in play in a recent article. I don’t know how comprehensive the list is, but it gives the flavor.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
I botched the link. Here’s the sentence correctly formatted: The Washington Blade listed a number of the bills in play in a recent article. I don’t know how comprehensive the list is, but it gives the flavor.
posted by Kosh III on
Tom, that article fails to incude Tennessee where such legislation is being proposed. As usual the key players are rich old white guys and/or the Souther Bigot(Baptist) Convention.
posted by Kosh III on
“Mike Huckabee and and Judge Moore are outliers.”
No, they are still mainstream in most of the South.
posted by Doug on
If Stephen ever ventured out of his ‘bubble’ and visited a solid red state, he would realize this.
posted by Mike in Houston on
Spot on… far too many data points on the graph say otherwise. Rick Santorum hasn’t changed his, ahem, spots… and Alan West is just as “out there” as his buddy the Huckster. Some others also come to mind…
Certain Florida clerks cancelling all civil marriage ceremonies…
Larry Hogan (MD) – rescinding executive orders protecting LGBT employees
Virginia Foxx (NC) – anti-gay nutter; co-sponsor of federal marriage amendment
Bobby Jindal (LA) – AFA prayer warrior calling for a constitutional amendment
David Vitter (LA) – another AFA prayer warrior calling for a constitutional amendment (on his way to be diapered by a professional lady)
Ted Cruz (TX) – need I say more?
Dan Patrick ( and the rest of the Tea-X Legislature & state-wide office holders) — 8 separate bills to strip cities of their public accommodation laws, punish workers for recognizing civil marriages, etc.
Sally Kern (OK) – 3 new bills
Jason Chaffetz (UT) – see Ted Cruz
I could go on, but to paraphrase — Huckabee and Moore can’t be outliers if they’re surrounded on all sides.
posted by Don on
Because of the debates here, I decided to approach an aunt of mine who is staunchly evangelical Republican about our upcoming wedding (Jorge & I didn’t get married on Florida’s historic day). I called her and I said “I feel that I have to invite you to our wedding. I cannot exclude you. However, I need to tell you that if you are uncomfortable coming because of your religious beliefs, I cannot compel you to come. You have been fervently faithful to them since before I was born. I would never ask you to compromise them and would not feel at all slighted by your non-attendance on those grounds.”
She cried.
And she thanked me. The conversation was much longer than that. But her heart melted and she replied “While we do not agree, when facing this conflict I believe there is only one answer to the problem you pose: love wins out. I would be delighted to come.”
Don’t fool yourselves into thinking that these discussions don’t matter. Stephen’s endless prodding on “forcing evangelicals . . .” and the ensuing debate led me to the impossible conclusion to act with grace and understanding and let her chips fall where they may.
I believe by doing so, it created a space for her heart to open and create a chance to reconcile a conflict she has long had herself.
And isn’t this really the libertarian solution? Govt be damned. One American talking to another about how to solve a problem. Not everything works out this way, but we do have to drop the fear and shouting long enough for both sides to give.
Unfortunately, I don’t see evangelicals taking this tack without us extending the grace first. And they may well slap our hand away. And while I could wax philosophically for hours for why they should go first – having created the problem to begin with – experience has shown me that peace only comes when the winner extends the hand of reconciliation first. Especially when they don’t deserve it.
posted by Mark Peterson on
Worth recalling that these “outliers” reflect the position of every Republican governor but Charlie Baker in Massachusetts–all the others oppose allowing gays and lesbians to marry (even as some have elected not to fight, George Wallace-like, against court decisions). These “outliers” also reflect the position of more than 90 percent of the Republicans in Congress. And, of course, these “outliers” reflect the official position on marriage of the Republican Party, as reflected in the party platform.
posted by Mike in Houston on
Shhhhhh… Facts that go against the narrative must be ignored.
posted by Tom Jefferson III on
In the South and much of the (especially rural and suburban) Midwest, the Republican Party leadership is still eager to play up the homophobia and the VERY few number of ‘moderate’ Republican leaders either just want to sugar coat the homophobia for the swing voters or, if they actually support equality, are dismissed as RINO.
Now I would welcome a change in this direction, because it would bring about a bit of sanity for the nation (to say nothing of helping promote civil rights).
However, I do not see too much of it happening within the GOP, outside of solidly blue or purple electorates. Even then, we get flip flopping Mitt Romney or McCain or even Rudy Giuliani who quickly jettison their moderate support for gay rights so that they can raise their profile.
posted by Jorge on
In the meantime, this is certainly an interesting response.
Hasn’t this already been tried and failed?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Doug: If Stephen ever ventured out of his ‘bubble’ and visited a solid red state, he would realize this.
Stephen won’t leave the Alphabet Street environs. But he doesn’t have to. All he has to do is get on a few e-mail lists.
Take, for example, this recent e-mail from Tony Perkins, which gives a snapshot of where the Republican Party is right now in the states:
If Stephen reads a few dozen communications like that from various states each week, following the various bills being proposed in those states, looking at who is supporting those measures, and listening to what is said about them, Stephen will get a clear enough picture to understand the nature and extent of the “Residual Resistance” he writes about in this post.
In comments a few months ago, I talked about the period we are now in as a period of “massive resistance”, akin to the long period resistance that followed Brown v. Board and the Civil Rights Acts of 1964, 1965 and 1968.
I am beginning to think that the two periods, although similar in nature, tactics and intent, are also dissimilar in one important respect. Outside of a few “deep-seg” states, I am beginning to think that the period of “Residual Resistance” will be short-lived in comparison to the “massive resistance” that followed on the Civil Rights victories of 50 years ago. I do not expect active resistance to go on for decades, but expect, instead, that active resistance will be wrapped up in an election cycle or two in most states. I just don’t think that there is enough wind to inflate the sails of discrimination too much longer than that.
In my thinking, there are too many stories like Don’s story about his aunt for active resistance to go on long-term.
Take my own case. I know a lot of social and religious conservatives — friends, neighbors, people I rub up against frequently, living as I do in a small town — and I have had similar, if not as dramatic, experiences as it becomes known that Michael and I have been married for almost a year now. It has gotten to the point where Michael and I often refer to the other as “my husband” in casual conversation, and think what they may, people seem to accept the fact that times have changed.
Yesterday, for example, I spent the day helping a friend move (that’s what happens when you drive a truck). He is a hard-core “Bible Christian”, an active member of a local congregation I sometimes call the “Heart of Darkness Bible Church” in honor of their active anti-gay letter writing campaign in local newspapers, and we (he and others from that congregation) got into a brief conversation at lunch about when Michael and I got married. He and the others listened to my saga about driving through a snowstorm to Minnesota to make our appointment with the Clerk of Courts, without anyone going into a “You are not married in the eyes of Jesus” tirade.
My neighbors down the road, who are Bible-believing, home-schooling conservative Christians who once told me that Christians in the United States were the most persecuted people in the world, have similarly settled in. We see each other frequently (in fact, I will be seeing them this afternoon) and our conversations have gotten to the point where they feel comfortable asking me about how things work in our marriage — both seem honestly puzzled how two husbands can possibly operate, since the husband in marriage as they understand it is the lord and master of the household.
I compare these stories with the experience I had fighting against Wisconsin’s anti-marriage amendment in 2006, when I was out every day for several hours knocking on doors around our county, and I am a bit taken aback. Then, being a public face of marriage equality in our rural county earned me several ugly and sometimes threatening phone calls a week. In contrast, in connection with the Windsor decision, a local paper hunted us up and ran an article about our reaction to the ruling. Not a single ugly phone call or comment ensued. Times have changed.
Tom Jefferson III: In the South and much of the (especially rural and suburban) Midwest, the Republican Party leadership is still eager to play up the homophobia and the VERY few number of ‘moderate’ Republican leaders either just want to sugar coat the homophobia for the swing voters or, if they actually support equality, are dismissed as RINO.
I agree. It is true in the four counties (Adams, Columbia, Juneau and Sauk) I deal with regularly, anyway. Despite the obvious change in attitude around this area, the local Republican Party leadership seems dead set on fighting to the last ditch, as loud and hard as possible. In fact, the Republican leadership seems to be pushing the issue around this area, rather than being pushed to it by conservative Christians.
Thinking about that, and the change in the times, I wonder about the question David Link posed in the post “Potemkin Vlle” of a few days ago: “What are politicians who oppose marriage equality defending any more?”
Or, to put it another way, why are Republican politicians hanging on to a dead fish so tenaciously long after it began to stink?
Don: One American talking to another about how to solve a problem. Not everything works out this way, but we do have to drop the fear and shouting long enough for both sides to give.
I think that’s true on a person-to-person basis, and I believe that we have made the progress we’ve made because gays and lesbians have done just that for many years. I’ve learned a trick in dealing with conservative Christians and other social conservatives in personal encounters — don’t confront (as in “You know that Michael and I are married now, huh?”) but instead be non-confrontational (as in “My husband says this about that …”), letting people absorb without having to react. I used this tactic for many years with respect to coming out to people. It worked then, and it works now.
To my mind, though, there is a distinction between personal encounters and public encounters. I think that we must fight back against the spate of proposed laws that work to set up a two-caste system, sanctioning discrimination against gays and lesbians but no one else. And I can see no other way to fight back except to confront — confront directly, confront clearly and confront hard as nails — in the public arena.
I don’t think that the two are incompatible. I think that it is possible “to act with grace and understanding” toward other people while battling tooth and nail against ideas.
posted by Mike in Houston on
Interesting little bit of news this week… ExxonMobil now includes sexual orientation and gender identity explicitly in their EEO policies.
While much credit deservedly goes to the hardworking LGBT employees and their allies in the company, an equal dollop of credit goes to President Obama for signing that executive order mandating LGBT non-discrimination policies for federal contractors.
The horrors of government overreach in action.
posted by Doug on
And Oklahoma just introduced legislation to allow Conversion Therapy without interference from the state.
Yep, the GOP has certainly changed. NOT !
posted by Tom Jefferson 3rd on
Am I the only one who finds it a tad hypocritical for some politician to rush to allow a government employee to opt out of officiating over a same-sex marriage, while also rushing to punish the same employee should he want to officiate over such a marriage……..
I mean if you are going to take the position that religious freedom can allow you to ignore laws……
posted by Jorge on
All I see is the politicians rushing to punish employees who are standing by their religious convictions.
But taking your example, it seems to me that they’d both be consistent with the principle that the US Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and that public officials take an oath to uphold the Constitution.