As the dust settles on the California Supreme Court’s marriage ruling, the question arises: Are we about to re-live the divisive political battles of the 2004 election?
As the dust
settles on the California Supreme Court’s marriage
ruling, the question arises: Are we about to re-live
the divisive political battles of the 2004 election?
The Massachusetts
court ruling came down in late 2003, and by
Valentine’s Day 2004, San Francisco Mayor Gavin
Newsom had opened City Hall to LGBT couples, giving
marriage licenses until they were halted a month later by
the same court that Thursday determined gays have the right
to marry. That was all it took for President Bush and
the GOP to make gay marriage a wedge issue, sparking
passions on both sides of the issue, and driving
conservatives to the polls. Remember the push for a federal
marriage amendment?
Past is prologue.
So far a million-plus signatures have been gathered to
put a ballot amendment before California voters this fall to
overturn the marriage-equality decision. And if
the pending marriage-equality case before
Connecticut’s highest court is resolved in favor of
marriage equality -- a decision is expected soon
-- there’s little doubt that gay marriage will
become a factor in November’s election.
Republicans, says
Ken Sherrill, a political science professor at New York
City’s Hunter College, “have to do something
to energize their base. The economy is in the toilet;
the war is generally believed not to be going
well.” However, he cautions, if Republicans turn
marriage equality into a political football, they
might not get any play. “The fact that a
campaign or campaign supporters push certain buttons
doesn’t mean that they are going to resonate
with the voters,” he says, pointing to the
special House election in Mississippi, which was won by a
Democrat this week. “They ran these
Obama–Reverend Wright ads, and it went over like a
lead ball."
As the marriage
ruling made news, both the Obama and Clinton campaigns
issued careful, nearly identical statements of support and
respect for the decision -- but also restated their
commitment to civil unions, saying matrimony should be
left up to individual states to decide. Republican
presidential nominee John McCain, however, has yet to make a
statement on the ruling.
According to
Patrick Sammon, president of the Log Cabin Republicans,
America is in a far different place now than it was four
years ago. He notes that many jurisdictions have
enacted partnership rights in the intervening years,
and “voters have seen the sky hasn’t
fallen,” he says. “They have gotten wise
to the fact that some politicians tried to use
divisive social issues to get votes,” adding he
doesn’t believe gay marriage will figure as
prominently in the current presidential contest. The
evidence? Five GOP senators who highlighted the
issue in their campaigns were booted from office
in 2006, Pennsylvania’s relentlessly anti-gay
Rick Santorum among them. Voters simply have other concerns
at this moment in our country's history, Sammon says,
especially given that McCain is seeking to be
competitive in states not traditionally Republican.
That means coaxing votes from independents and some
Democrats who may be alienated by too stern a tone on
marriage equality.
As Sherrill says,
if McCain or fellow Republicans bring the issue up,
“you can expect the Democrats to run a campaign that
says ‘don’t get distracted by this issue
when the real issue is putting food on your
table.’ ” (Frankie Edozien, The
Advocate)
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