IGF CultureWatch

I recently commented on fears that gay marriage will be an effective mass mobilization issue for rank-and-file conservatives, noting that such a threat seemed overblown. As a reader e-mailed to point out, Michael Greve, a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, made the same point back in March when he wrote:

I disagree with the widely held notion that judicial overreach [courts requiring states to recognize gay marriage] would spark a backlash and a lasting social rift akin to the division generated by Roe v. Wade. There is no such thing as a "charming" abortion, and nobody celebrates an abortion with friends and family. The certainty that each abortion (40 million and counting) is an act of brutal aggression sustains the Right to Life movement.

In contrast, even adamant opponents of same-sex marriage as an institution can think of a charming same-sex couple and of a union worth celebrating. And who precisely are the victims that command our compassion and protection? Movement-sustaining fervor at this front is hard to come by, and easily lost amid messy details and conflicting emotions. (emphasis added)

That's not to say that achieving gay marriage, or even civil unions, won't require a long, drawn out fight throughout the length and breadth of the nation, especially to defeat or overturn statewide constitutional amendments and DOMA laws. But what we learned from the recent Senate vote is that the grass-roots troops aren't calling, writing, and pestering their elected officials with the vehemence they express over abortion. That's a positive worth bearing in mind.

More Recent Postings
7/25/04 - 7/31/04

Some quick takes on matters gay. I'll restrain myself from delving into other issues, such as the economy, healthcare and national security, although these are actually (believe it or not) more crucial than gay rights for the country as a whole.

The absence of rainbow flags and gay rights placards has been frequently mentioned; apparently, this year only official signage was allowed onto the floor.

Neither Kerry nor Edwards mentioned gays, unlike Clinton/Gore in years past. The closest Kerry came was to say: "We believe that what matters most is not narrow appeals masquerading as values, but the shared values that show the true face of America. Not narrow appeals that divide us, but shared values that unite us. Family and faith...."

[Addendum 1: He also said this: "Let's honor this nation's diversity; let's respect one another; and let's never misuse for political purposes the most precious document in American history, the Constitution of the United States." Worthy sentiments, but you'd have to already be familiar with the Federal Marriage Amendment debate to connect the dots to gays.]

[Addendum 2: Virginia Postrel argues Kerry wasn't talking about the FMA, but about the Florida recount - or at least that's what the delegates thought he was saying. Guess his code words were even too cryptic for the insiders!]

Barney Frank's remarks early Thursday evening did addressed same sex marriage and the Federal Marriage Amendment, but this was the exception. There were virtually no prime-time mentions of gays, though rising star Barack Obama, the Senate candidate from Illinois, referred fleetingly to "gay friends in the Red states." Tammy Baldwin, the openly lesbian Congressmember from Wisconsin, also had a prime-time spot but did not utter "gay" or "lesbian," though she did, I think, refer to the need for health coverage for domestic partners.

Human Rights Campaign head Cheryl Jacques spoke, I believe, at 5:45 ET on Wednesday for a few minutes, saying "Gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender Americans share the dream of a better, stronger, and more united America," and "We're working for marriage equality -- so we can do what families do best -- care for each other in sickness and health...."

Other than that, I'm not sure same-sex marriage (which Kerry/Edwards oppose) was mentioned, and, as far as I know, there were no other criticisms of the Federal Marriage Amendment (which Kerry/Edwards also oppose, but not enough to actually vote against).

So if gay issues were for the most part "invisibilized" by the Democrats in prime time, the question is whether the Republicans will restrain their impulse to explicitly gay bash throughout their shindig. I, for one, would be shocked if Bush doesn't crow about his support for the Federal Marriage Amendment and traditional marriage, in a further "good riddance" (in the words of social conservative Bush insider Paul Weyrich) to gay Republicans.

The Next (Upscale) Generation.

Thursday's Wall Street Journal, in a frontpage article headlined "Democrats Tap a Rich Lode: Young, Well-Off Social Liberals," notes that forty-something entrepreneurial successes, some of whom describe themselves as "centrist, moderate Republicans" and backed Bush in 2000, are contributing to Kerry this time:

This new generation of wealth -- men and women who grew up with working moms, black classmates and gay friends, during the rise of environmentalism -- is defying the traditional notion that as people swim up the income scale, they tend to become more Republican.

Wake up, Karl Rove!

Instead of the Democrats, my partner and I watched "Drew Carey" Wednesday night. On this episode, Drew's meddling inadvertently broke up a gay couple whose young son plays with Drew's nephew. Drew then drives from Cleveland to Youngstown, where one partner has fled to his parents' house. The 60ish father greets Drew with "you're the guy who broke up my son's marriage over a basketball game." The father then says, "Now that you're inside my house, anything I do to you is self-defense" -- establishing his bona fides as a tough conservative. So we have a conservative white-haired father referring to "my son's marriage" and criticizing the man who broke it up, on a sitcom set in blue-collar Cleveland. Yet another indication of how times have passed the Santorum Republicans by (had to get one jab in there!).

It's a week old, but this Boston Globe article captures the Bush decision to jettison gay votes in the hopes of upping conservative Christian support. A revealing incident:

As Senate Republicans began accelerating the debate over gay marriage last month, President Bush got a warning about the potential for political fallout. Representative Charles Bass of New Hampshire, sharing a ride on Air Force One, told Bush to "back off this gay marriage thing, that it was going to be devastating for him in the Northeast," where voters have a famously libertarian streak

"I don't think they actively support gay marriage, but they have a subliminal distrust for government establishing a moral code for people's lives," Bass, a Republican, recalled telling Bush. In response, Bass said, Bush "looked at me like I was crazy." The president ignored the advice and actively supported a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage....

Turning to the other party, here's Andrew Sullivan's take on Kerry, who supports amending Massachusetts' constitution to ban gay marriage but permit civil unions:

I'm not saying that gay voters should not support Kerry. I just don't want to live through another Clinton ordeal. I don't want a "pro-gay" president getting away with trashing our civil rights just because he's not as hostile as the alternative. ... [Kerry says] that he favors giving gay couples every federal benefit that straight couples have. But he knows this is an easy promise, because it will never be passed. And -- mark my words -- he will not expend any political capital to enact it.

Bush's anti-gay politics makes it easy for Kerry to virtually ignore the wants and needs of his gay supporters -- where they gonna go?

That's the assertion conveyed in this Washington Post article. According to the report:

Activists on both sides have begun to speak of the issue [gay marriage] as "the new abortion" -- a passionate and uncompromising struggle that will be fought in Congress, the courts and state legislatures, and through referendums for at least a decade to come.

While I think that the dedicated activist cadres on both sides are as "energized" as in the abortion fight during its heyday, I don't believe there's good evidence that nonactivists, work-a-day conservative Christians are as incited over two folks of the same sex wanting to tie the knot as they are/were over what they viewed as, at best, the selfish sacrifice of innocent life, and at worst as outright baby killing.

"The two sides are also increasingly identified with the Republican and Democratic parties," the Post article states, but then refers to the vice presidential spouse Lynne Cheney saying, "When it comes to conferring legal status on relationships, that is a matter left to the states," which suggests that even staunch conservatives might not all be ready to fall in line, unlike in the abortion debate.

Contra the Post's premise, William Schneider, a resident liberal at the American Enterprise Institute, writes in an article titled "Wedges Failing to Bite" that:

Asked in this month's Gallup Poll to name the most important problems facing the country, Americans put three issues at the top of the list: the economy and jobs (26 percent), Iraq (26 percent), and terrorism (15 percent). No other issue reached double digits. Six percent mentioned moral values. Two percent thought immigration was a top issue. The environment and gay rights barely registered, at 1 percent each. Abortion and guns were even lower.

Which suggests that even abortion isn't the wedge it once was. Schneider continues:

Conservatives are dismayed by the absence of any apparent voter alarm over same-sex marriages. The movement for a constitutional amendment is meeting with widespread apathy.... Voters see big issues at stake this year. And big issues tend to crowd out smaller ones.... Wedge issues, such as same-sex marriage, don't seem to be having much impact this year, because voters are so strongly committed to their choices in the presidential campaign. It's hard to wedge them loose.

But if Democrats love inciting class-war resentments, Republicans are addicted to provoking culture-war hostilities -- and the press will intently keep up the drumbeat for both.

Somewhat obscured in the aftermath of the Senate vote-down of the anti-gay Federal Marriage Amendment, the House last week voted thumbs up for a bill that seeks to strip federal courts of jurisdiction to hear challenges to parts of the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) pertaining to whether a state must recognize same-sex unions legalized elsewhere.

I find it doubtful that federal courts would find constitutional a bill limiting their jurisdiction, presuming the Senate went along with this measure. But even so, despite the anti-gay animus behind this attempt, letting state legislatures and courts decide whether to recognize marriages performed elsewhere has long been the standard (a Supreme Court ruling was necessary to specifically bar miscegenation as a reason states could refuse to recognize marriages).

So I'm not up in arms over this new bill. In fact, if a federal court were to rule that state x must recognize a Massachusetts same-sex marriage, it would swiftly reinvigorate the push for the Federal Marriage Amendment (with far more devastating results), as well as for even more state constitutional amendments barring recognition of our marriages.

Maybe I'm wrong not to be upset by this court-jurisdiction bill; time will tell.

President Bush went before the Urban League to say that the Democratic Party is taking African Americans for granted, and to suggest they would have more political leverage if they spread their votes around. But he admitted that the Republican Party "has got a lot of work to do" to improve its paltry support among minority voters, reports the Washington Post.

I'm not the first to note the willful blindness that leads George W. not to see that the same appeal could apply to gays. But rather than seeking to expand our support, which overwhelmingly goes to Democrats, Bush (and strategist Karl Rove) have decided the bloc of 1 million gay votes he received in 2000 is expendable.

On the Federal Marriage Amendment, "the statements made by so many senators to explain their votes were discouraging, frequently insulting, and denied many Americans the respect we are due," writes Matt Foreman, head of the left-liberal National Gay & Lesbian Task Force. He continues:

"Not a single senator stood up and said he or she was voting against the amendment because marriage is a fundamental right that same-sex couples should enjoy under the Constitution. If the Senate actually reflected and articulated the views of the American public, at least one-third of them would have actually argued for marriage equality and the basic rights of all Americans."

Actually, I'm told that Ted Kennedy and Mark Dayton of Minnesota were the two (count 'em) senators who did say supportive things about gay marriage.

More Recent Postings
7/18/04 - 7/24/04

Columnist Bob Roehr hits the nail on the head in his analysis of the Senate's marriage vote. He writes:

Most Democrats harped on the fact that, gasp, the Republicans were playing politics with the issue; all the while promoting their own set of political priorities. There was not a lot of defense of the gay community -- one of its most loyal constituencies in terms of votes, workers, and dollars -- which may signal a rocky future for that relationship.

Indeed, I'd be hard pressed to recall a single defense of gay marriage as a social good from the party that takes our money (yes, yes, the Republicans are worse; but we don't fund them).

Roehr goes on to note:

The Kerry/Edwards Democratic presidential team skipped the FMA vote, the only Senators to do so. The campaign staff said that Kerry was in Boston "preparing" for the Democratic National Convention.... During the preceding month the Kerry/Edwards campaign raked in over $600,000 at gay fundraisers in Boston and New York.

The day after the FMA vote Kerry was in Philadelphia at the NAACP convention. He criticized George W. Bush for claiming that a scheduling conflict kept him from addressing that group.

Can Sen. Kerry spell HYPOCRISY? As Roehr comments, perhaps we're just supposed to be grateful they're taking our dollars.

Dale Carpenter has more to say about this in "No Excuse for Kerry"