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Loading ...Dems see opportunity in gay marriage
05.04.2009 5:07pm EDT
(Washington) Gay marriage legalization in several states and the public’s growing acceptance of same-sex unions have Democrats sensing political opportunity and some Republicans re-evaluating their party’s hard-line opposition to an issue that long has rallied its base.
In recent weeks, Vermont and Iowa have legalized same-sex marriage, while New York, Maine and New Hampshire have taken steps in that direction. Polls show younger Americans are far are more tolerant on the issue than are older generations. For now at least, the public is much more focused on the troubled economy and two wars than on social issues.In addition, over the past decade, public acceptance of gay marriage has changed dramatically.
A Quinnipiac University poll released last week found that a majority of people questioned, by a 55-38 percent margin, oppose gay marriage. But it also found that people, by a 57-38 percent margin, support civil unions that would provide marriage-like rights for same-sex couples, indicating a shift toward more acceptance.
With congressional elections next year, Republicans, Democrats and nonpartisan analysts say the changes benefit Democrats, whose bedrock liberals favor gay unions, and disadvantage Republicans, whose conservative base insists that marriage be solely between a man and a woman.
“This is not a sea change. This is a tide that is slowly rising in favor of gay marriage,” creating a favorable political situation for Democrats and ever-more difficulty for Republicans, said David McCuan, a political scientist at Sonoma State University in California.
Democrats have a broader base filled with more accepting younger voters, as well as flexibility on the issue. Hard-core liberals support gay marriage, while others, including President Barack Obama, take a more moderate position of civil unions and defer to states on gay marriage.
Conversely, the GOP base is older, smaller and more conservative. Republicans have no place to shift on the issue but to the left, because the party has been identified largely with its rock-solid opposition to gay marriage and civil unions. Also, the GOP has no titular head setting the tone on this or other issues.
In recent months, proponents have used state legislatures and court challenges to legalize gay marriage, mindful that the majority of the public still isn’t supportive and successful ballot measures would be less likely.
Because of high court rulings, gay marriage now is legal in Iowa, Massachusetts and Connecticut. A Vermont law allowing gay marriage will take effect in September. New Hampshire and New Jersey, where same-sex couples can enter into civil unions, are considering gay marriage legislation. So are Maine and New York.
Political insiders no doubt will pay close attention to developments in Iowa and New Hampshire, early presidential voting states, to see how the issue plays out in the run-up to the 2012 presidential election.
Despite the changes, gay-marriage opponents are buoyed by a voter initiative in California that blocked the state from allowing gay marriage, and by the 29 states where voters have approved state constitutional amendments banning gay marriage.
For years, the GOP and its conservative base has used its opposition to gay marriage to drive Republican turnout in elections and marginalize party moderates. Measures defining marriage between a man and a woman that were on ballots in a slew of states in 2004 were widely credited with boosting the number of conservative voters, giving Republican George W. Bush an edge over Democrat John Kerry.
But there’s been conflicting evidence since then over just how much that contributed to Bush’s victory.
What’s certain is that opposition to gay marriage for decades has been a potent tool for the GOP in rallying social conservatives. They are critical to the party’s grass-roots organizing and small-dollar fundraising.
But as more states accept gay and lesbian unions, there is a debate inside the party over how it should position itself on the issue. The dispute is just one part of a broader struggle within the out-of-power GOP over its identity and whether it should focus on rallying conservatives or attracting supporters from across the political spectrum.
Some prominent Republicans are backing away from cut-and-dried opposition, and some party operatives say it’s only a matter of time before others follow suit because the country is changing.
Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman of Utah, a Mormon who is a potential presidential candidate, backed a 2004 constitutional amendment defining marriage as between a man and a woman. But he says he favors civil unions and extending some legal rights to gay couples.
Last month, John McCain’s chief campaign strategist, Steve Schmidt, told the Log Cabin Republicans: “Even though a majority of Republicans remain opposed to it, we must respect dissent on the subject within the party and encourage debate over it, and should not reject out of hand and on specious grounds … that the party might be in the wrong on the question.”
The shifting landscape is emboldening the gay-rights’ movement, a pillar of the Democratic Party’s left flank.
“We are at a tipping point moment,” said Joe Solmonese, president of the Human Rights Campaign, a leading advocate of gay rights. “The lingering minority that continues to think that the way to win is to hold GLBT people up as a wedge could not be more out of touch.”
>So my point is the same thing goes with telling folks your gay at work!
You’re missing the whole point (probably on purpose).
We aren’t interested in telling someone on the interview that we’re gay. We’re not interested, necessarily, in telling someone at work “out of the blue.” We’re asking to be allowed to share information in *exactly* the *same* *way* as heterosexuals do.
So, if a heterosexual can casually mention, “My wife just called and she’s in the hospital. I need to take the afternoon off,” then we would like to say, “My partner just called and he’s in the hospital. I need to take the afternoon off.”
Right now, in many states, it’s perfectly normal for a heterosexual to say that line and there are no repercussions from it, but it’s legal to fire the gay person for saying it.
Equal ways of living one’s life. Equal treatment. That’s all.
To the Comment by “Man”
Perversion or not, its about LOVE AND MARRIAGE RIGHTS PAY ATTENTION! Im not in the loop entirely with the politics of this whole thing, but its about people getting DISCRIMANATED and Denied rights, for the “perversion” they were born with! Why should you be allowed to have rights with YOUR PERVERSION and not Gays? F**k off
I dont know if im out of the loop or not, but cant we just have civil unions WITH extended rights? why do we have to have marriage?? Marriage = high divorce rates!! I wanna keep my man, and I quite frankly marriage is too mainstream, we’re gay! we’re different, why not be happy with Civil Unions with extra benefits? I may be misinformed, but thats how im seein this
If i were to wake up and go out to look for a job and got an interview and lets say the interviewer was a woman. Now at the end of that interview i tell her oh by the way ima heterosexuel, how do you think she might take that,besides the fact that i telling her im a heterosexuel was tottaly not needed to know to get the job or any job for that matter, but wonder whats going through her mind when i told her that. Now sinc she is Human and Humans assume alot all the time, Im betting she think I just made a pass at her yeppers! That doesnt make her heterophobic , that makes her right most likely! Why els would i tell her im heterosexuel unless i was advertising hey im heterosexuel all you women out there in the office and ready to mate woooohooooo! see that would be grounds for termination!! Its called sexuel harrasment! Think it outrageous but gohead try it yourself at work to your female fellow employee and see what happens or perhaps your boss. So my point is the same thing goes with telling folks your gay at work! WHY?!?!? are you hunting for other gays at work? There is no reason for anyone to need to know your gay at work period! Keep sex at home behind closed doors where it belongs! Everyone has a perversion, weather it be called heterosexuel perversion or gay it is a p[erversion not a race of people , and you need to keep your perversions at home behind closed doors where they belong! Nobody is born horney or sexuely active . You remeber that thing called puberty you went through and you can be influenced in what you believe and how you think by the experiences around you during that critical stage! Fact! So in other words to put it bluntly, your perversion does not make you a new race of people just makes ya perverted like all the rest of us, only differenc is you want extra rights for being perverted! NOT GONNA HAPPEN! Keep sex and what ever your perversion is at home sheesh quit making issues out of sexuel prefrences out in public where it doesnt belong and the public wont have issues with you lol! I dont go to work using street slang so you dont go to work using sexuel slang in other words gay slang or talk thank you!
The reason why opposition to same-sex marriage is high is based on religious beliefs. That whole procreation stance that they use to deny us marriage equality is deeply flawed and doesn’t hold much water. If that is what is at the core of the problem, then the same people have to seriously ask themselves, if they truly believe procreation is the primary reason for marrying, then they would have to support the notion that straight couples who are childless by choice or who can’t procreate should have their marriages annulled and those intending to marry but don’t want children banned also. They can’t have it both ways.
Marriage equality won’t happen in all 50 states unless the Supreme Court currently stacked with republicans intervenes and that’s not going to happen. 30 states have DOMA in place, without Supreme Court intervention, its going to become extremely difficult to overturn in those states. More western European countries will emerge with marriage equality far sooner than we can imagine. We won’t unfortunately.
It really is a matter of time.
Here in CT, I can get married. I think it will take the New England states moves toward marriage equality to sway the rest of the country slowly, but surely. California will once again allow gay marriage. THAT is just a matter of time.
My generation is widely accepting of the issue. They don’t care if you’re gay, straight, black, white or purple. If you love your significant other, regardless of gender, then why not? Most of the younger generations parents have shown that “traditional marriage” sometimes doesnt work out. The stance that it should be left for one man and one woman is not a deciding factor for my gen. We’re not dumb and can comprehend (well…some anyway) that the ‘one man, one woman’ marriages have increasingly ended in divorce. If it’s going the way of the bible that opponents are striving for, then there is no such thing as divorce. If you are a proponent for “traditional marriage” and you’ve been once, twice divorced and left your spouse for a younger hotter version…then your sadly misled. Based on the pieces of paper written by men who wear dresses and live with eachother in a palace surrounded by fabulous works of art and antiques…divorce doesn’t exist.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too folks.
By the time I’m 30 (we’ve got 6 years), Gay Marriage will be allowed wide-spread throughout this country. The land of the free and the land of opportunity. That’s why we all proud to be tax-paying citizens and to live here to begin with.
My partner of 35 years and I feel that at this point we would very much welcome a civil union for ourselves rather than no rights at all. Unfortunatley for us we live in one of those pathetic states where it would never happen as the majority of voters are born-again losers. Approximately 80% of our taxes go to their kids and we get nothing in return for living here. We feel that the Federal Govt must step in and give us and our people civil unions. It is a start, though not full equal rights.
The ol’ “Seperate, But Equal” mindset. Where have I seen that before? I really cannot understand the people that oppose marriage equality, but support civil unions. I mean if their concerns centered around churches being forced to perform same-sex weddings, it’s completely unfounded! Provisions to avoid such conflicts have already been written into the marriage equality bills. It’s about being equal in the eyes of the law. At least the younger generation seems to be dismissing their parents’ archaic beliefs. It’s all a matter of time!
Marriage equality is much more personal that the political considerations.
This issue is in summary the idea of a couple and its relationship being protected in many ways in the eyes of the local state’s tax laws, laws regarding real and personal property, medical decision making for a partner no longer able to make decisions, right to bury one’s partner, being able to get pass property onto the surviving partner without taxation, social security benefits, the rights of a couple to conduct its most important decisions and to legally exclude a meddling birth family from any claims to anything regarding a relative or to be able to interfere in a couple’s life, etc.
Frankly, while I am a political progressive, I do not believe the issue of marriage equality is a matter of progressives and liberals vs. conservatives. This is an issue of democracy vs. mass or mob rule. I was taught in a relatively conservative school system during the 1950s and 1960s. Our teachers stressed that mere majority rule is mob rule and not democracy. We were taught that democracy is majority rule, yes, but WITH PROTECTIONS FOR THE RIGHTS OF MINORITIES and that the majority must not be permitted to deny the rights of minorities. As we continue to work to gain and protect marriage equality rights, we need to stress that denying marriage equality to same-sex couples, regardless of what the majority may believe is a denial of democratic rights.
As for those opposed to marriage equality, whether conservatives or religious or Republicans or Canadian Conservatives or liberals or whatever, we need to say, “If you don’t believe in same-sex marriage, then don’t marry someone of the same sex.”