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Republicans were elected and re-elected during the George W. Bush years in large part due to the party’s continued distortion, marginalization, and oppression of the LGBT community.
But those attacks never came.
A few states are voting on important LGBT-related ballot initiatives this time around, like Proposition 8, which would ban gay marriage in California; but otherwise, the LGBT issues that split the nation in 2000 through 2004 have yet to make a significant appearance on the national scene. Gay marriage didn’t come up in any of the three presidential debates; during the vice presidential debate it merited only one question.
One reason for the pull back in anti-gay rhetoric may be the increasing influence and activism of gay voters in both parties.
“Gay people have been very engaged in this election,” Log Cabin Republicans communication director Scott Tucker said. “In a lot of swing states the gay vote will make a difference.”
Both campaigns seem eager to woo the vote, whether or not they are strong on LGBT issues.
Tucker pointed out that John McCain sent a top campaign advisor, Steve Schmidt, to accept the LCR’s endorsement during the Republican Convention. This stands in stark contrast to 2004 race when LCR and the Bush Campaign practically pretended the other didn’t exist.
Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), co-chair of Barack Obama’s LGBT Steering Policy Committee, says Obama has a long and vocal history of supporting the LGBT community. He opposed the Federal Marriage Amendment and supports the repeal of the Defense of Marriage Act. Obama has also called for LGBT equality while on the campaign trail.
“In Barack Obama, we have a presidential candidate who is openly supportive of LGBT equality,” Baldwin said. “He truly understands, from a personal perspective, the need to erase hate and fear-based stereotyping, bigotry, and inequality.”
Obama was also one of the Democratic primary candidates who attended a presidential forum designed to directly address the issues of LGBT voters. For many gay Americans, the forum – hosted last year by the Human Rights Campaign and Logo, which owns 365gay.com – was their first long look at Obama. The Republican candidates, including John McCain, were asked to attend but declined to participate, according to HRC Legal Director Lara Schwartz.
Unlike George W. Bush’s team, the McCain campaign has largely stayed away from LGBT issues; they refused to make anyone available to be interviewed for this article. However, in a conversation with the Washington Blade, McCain said: “I hope gay and lesbian Americans will give full consideration to supporting me.”
McCain has raised concern with his somewhat muddied view on LGBT adoption. It is unclear whether or not he feels LGBT people should be allowed to adopt but he said that “a child is best raised by a mother and father.”
If the candidates seem to be staying away from forcefully expounding on LGBT issues, the public seems to be staying away, too – perhaps because the public continues to become more accepting of gay people, or perhaps because they have other things to think about.
“This election cycle, our nation is facing a set of urgent crises. From the economy, to the on-going war in Iraq, to the lack of health care-for-all and serious shortages in funding for education and other vital services, the American people are really struggling,” said Rep. Baldwin.
HRC’s Schwartz has a similar opinion. “People’s 401ks are vanishing before their eyes, mortgages are fluctuating and jobs are insecure; they learned being hysterical (about same-sex marriage) didn’t help them, it didn’t protect their retirement savings.”
The final question is whether LGBT issues being kept of the national spotlight is good or bad for the movement in the long run.
Schwartz feels that the attacks on LGBT rights in the early 2000s were devastating to gay morale and resulted in many bad laws. She adds, however, that there has been a backlash against bigotry and a move toward moderation that has changed the political landscape.
“You can’t be Rick Santorum and win an election anymore,” said Schwartz.
Rep. Baldwin believes that the lack of exploitation of LGBT issues to win votes is a good thing, but she also emphasizes the importance of setting public, positive examples.
“As participants in a civil rights movement, we understand that our visibility, our voices and our willingness to come out are central components of our struggle toward full equality under the law. Our personal stories change hearts and minds,” said Baldwin.
With just under three weeks until the election, it is still possible that LGBT issues like same-sex marriage or the Employment Non-Discrimination Act could become hot potatoes.
Yet with the economy dominating the dialog and the voices of intolerance seemingly (perhaps temporarily) muted, the LGBT community looks like it’s flying under the radar this election cycle.
Does this mean the end of gay-baiting on the national political scene?
“I think it’s impossible to predict,” said Schwartz. “But we have seen a fairly steady decline in the passionate opposition.”
Well if what the bad people are up to in California is any indicator, they’re not talking about us, they’re just quietly raising and spending money to screw us over.
Well, the Right-wing nuts have pretty much shot their wad over state marriage-inequality amendments — that is, with most states having already written discrimination (to their everlasting shame) into their own State Constitutions.
So…what’s left? Lawrence -v- Texas took reinstating sodomy laws off the table. Maybe a constitutional amendment against “good fashion sense“?
What else can they do to us? Separate lunch counters? Reinstating old “Jim Crow” laws?
…Oh, I’m sorry, that’s Obama’s “final solution” to the same-sex “marriage” problem.
I’ll also bet you that when President Obama gets around (don’t hold your breath) to allowing gays to serve openly in the military that he‘ll “compromise“ our personal dignity away with instituting separate barracks for gays and lesbians. See, that way everybody’s happy. Right?
Then on employment non-discrimination, he’ll “compromise” by allowing businesses with under 2,000 employees to be exempt from the law, as well as anyone with religious objections to the “homosexual lifestyle”.
They actually tried to pull that one over on the GLBT community under Tony Blair in jolly ol’ England. Watch and see how quickly people get “all religious” with that joke of a law. But I see it coming here and, unlike Great Britain where it was eventually rejected, it will probably be celebrated by Obama and the Democrats as a sensible “compromise“.
What a choice. Republicans who are so ruthlessly professional at persecuting us, and Democrats who are seasoned experts at exploiting us and then ignoring us or handing us worst legislation than the GOP could have ever concocted in order to get us off their backs after an election. Does DADT and DOMA still ring the warning bell for anyone?
Now it is a “National Civil Union Registry” promise from Obama. And who knows what other apartheid plans he has for us in the future? How about putting us on our own reservations? That worked for Indians in North America and for Blacks in South Africa, right?
Perhaps, we should use our own initiative before it is too late. I say that we take a clue from Sarah Palin’s separatist husband. I suggest that all thirty million of us in the GLBT community participate in a mass migration and take over the state of Maryland. Marylanders has a such good ring to it, don‘t you think?
…Yep, I see good times ahead.
~ Bud Evans
Somebody want to tell me how Obama voted against DOMA when he wasn’t even IN the US Congress in 1996?
“One reason for the pull back in anti-gay rhetoric may be the increasing influence and activism of gay voters in both parties.”
I doubt that explanation very much, and I don’t see why both parties are included. Aside from some conservatives in the party, the Democrats have not been the party of anti-gay rhetoric, now or in the past.
Obviously, the Republicans have been and still are, but banning gay marriage, which has been one of their main rallying issues, has already been accomplished in most states in past elections. In this election, only 3 states are inviting voters to bash gays on marriage. That’s surely a main reason why the anti-gay rhetoric is down. The religious right has already achieved most of what it wanted on that issue throughout the rest of the country.
Thanks, Alexa – we fixed it.
Bud and Blacksteel are basically correct. Most of the “battleground” states are already so anti-gay that there’s very little point in the Republicans using the homophobia angle this year. In a sense, the GOP is a victim of its own success in 2004.
Although there’s are amendments banning same-sex marriage on the California, Arizona, and Florida ballots, it is unlikely to change the dynamic in the presidential race. Obama has double digit leads in California. And Arizona will vote for its native son (John McCain). Florida Democrats and Independents are as socially conservative as the Republicans anyway. Ohio, Michigan, and Virginia already ban recognition of same-sex relationships of any kind. These bans already forbid civil unions and domestic partnerships. So, short of a meaningless recriminalization of sodomy, which will get thrown out by the courts as soon as it is passed, there’s nothing left to get indignant about. They’ve already “put the gays in their place” at the bottom of the totem pole.
My advice… If you’re gay and you’ve got an education move to Canada.
I’ll take the party whose’s conservative members would simple not advance our rights or give us half measures versus the party whose’s conservative members would see us forcibly tattooed and round up in camps!