Posted on 09/06/2007 2:37:59 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
It’s probably difficult to grasp the jubilance of the six gay couples who prodded a judge in Polk County, Iowa, to strike down the state’s gay marriage ban last week. “This is kind of the American dream,” one plaintiff in the case told The Des Moines Register. “It’s pure elation — I just cannot believe it.”
After the 2004 election, though, such elation is somewhat perplexing. After all, it was the Massachusetts Supreme Court’s 2003 decision to legalize gay marriage that set off a national movement to ban gay marriage via state constitutional amendments.
The movement succeeded not only in getting voters in 11 states to pass such amendments on Election Day 2004 but also in helping the Republican Party accomplish the historic feat of reclaiming the White House while picking up seats in the House and Senate.
One post-2004 study found that voters to whom gay marriage was a top issue were more than twice as likely to support President Bush if there was a gay marriage ban on the ballot in their state.
In Ohio, where switching fewer than 60,000 votes would have put John F. Kerry in the White House, an anti-gay-marriage ballot initiative helped deliver the state to George W. Bush.
With Bush ensconced in the White House for a second term and a decidedly anti-gay-rights GOP in firmer control of Congress after 2004, the Massachusetts Supreme Court decision clearly turned out to be a Pyrrhic victory for gay rights advocates.
The 2006 midterm elections, by contrast, showed that when the gay marriage question is overshadowed by other issues — in that instance, the Iraq war and the rash of Republican scandals — Democrats can win big.
When that happens, gays tend to benefit. The Democratic-controlled House of Representatives passed a bill to expand federal hate crimes protections to homosexuals earlier this year. And unlike recent GOP-controlled Congresses, this one is not planning to take up an amendment to the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage.
Across the country, newly Democratic state legislatures have passed bolder gay rights laws, with New Hampshire legalizing gay civil unions and Oregon adopting domestic partnerships for gay couples.
Even in culturally conservative Iowa, where Democrats took the governor’s mansion and both houses of the legislature last year for the first time since 1964, gays earlier this year won their first civil rights protections.
With the 2008 Iowa presidential caucuses looming, last week’s dramatic gay marriage “victory” in Polk County threatens to halt such incremental gains for gay rights.
As conservative religious activists in the Hawkeye State mobilize to amend Iowa’s Constitution to ban gay marriage, the Republican presidential candidates best poised to benefit are those most hostile to gay rights: former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, and, perhaps, former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson.
The Republican candidate most likely to suffer, of course, is the one with the most pro-gay-rights record: Rudy Giuliani. It’s not too difficult to imagine ads juxtaposing the former New York mayor with Judge Robert Hanson, who struck down Iowa’s Defense of Marriage Act last week, ruling that the state’s marriage laws must be “applied in a gender-neutral manner.”
Democratic presidential candidates, meanwhile, are being forced by the Polk County decision to carve out nuanced positions on an issue that Kerry proved in 2004 is extremely thorny for his party.
In the unlikely event that Iowa’s Supreme Court upholds legalized gay marriage, Democrats will be forced back on the defensive over their opposition to amending the U.S. Constitution to ban gay marriage, just like Kerry was.
A survey last year by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life found that only 35 percent of Americans support legalized gay marriage, the same proportion as in 2001.
Iowa’s new state Democratic regime, for its part, may feel pressured to pass a constitutional ban on gay marriage — a proposed constitutional amendment must pass two consecutively elected state legislatures and a public referendum to be adopted — to avoid charges of being weak on traditional marriage during their reelection campaigns.
All of which makes it difficult to see how last week’s ruling will help gay couples achieve the American dream, even if one couple did manage to tie the knot before the Polk County decision was stayed. In fact, the most favorable outcome for gay couples nationwide may be for Iowa’s Supreme Court to end the political drama by overturning last week’s decision.
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Dan Gilgoff is political editor at Beliefnet.com and author of “The Jesus Machine: How James Dobson, Focus on the Family, and Evangelical America are Winning the Culture War” (St. Martin’s Press, 2007).
What an unfortunate choice of words, given the context.
LOL. Were they jubilant or just gay? I won't touch the verb.
It just goes to show that there have been consequences to the gay activists attempts to force same sex marriage through the courts. There are now 27 states that define marriage within their state constitutions, almost all of which have happened since Nov. 2003. This would not have happened without that court ruling in Mass.
Maybe the gay activists should not have tried to force marriage through the courts. Their insistence that “civil unions” are not enough and are “separate but equal” probably has turned away people who might have supported their efforts for partnership rights.
The Iowa court ruling has been stayed. But the state supreme courts of California, Maryland, and Connecticut could all rule on this before the Nov. 2008 election. So it could be a factor in the ‘08 elections. Florida may be voting on a state constitutional amendment in ‘08.
I agree with the premise of this article. I am one such conservative.
My take is that gopers will stay home this next election cycle because they/we are so angry over bush’s betrayal on immigration and the party’s obvious obfuscation on the subject.
It seems corporate America has full run of the house at gop headquarters, leaving ordinary old reagan repubs in the dust.
That said, the only subjects that will rouse my blood pressure are the fricking gay agenda and of course preparation H.
Otherwise - if the DEMS silence the gays, and offer up Obama.. my thoughts are that ordinary conservatives will sit out the election... allow the tiger woods candidate to prevail... s\
Much like what Biden and Hume said - Wisconsin housewives will beam with pride at how well the darkies have done - producing this fresh, clean black man in Chicago Politics.
But - if my choice is between the brokeback future for my kids with the clitnons - well, I;ll be out there holding signs on street corners for Rumsfeld. [and I HATE rumsfeld]
I know I’m not alone. I have always been pretty mainstream paleo.... and Perot appealed to a lot of us during the bush/clinton/bush years...
That does not disqualify us from participation in conservative forums - I would hope.
“six gay couples who prodded a judge”...
Well if you are not going to prod a judge, how can you possibly expect to achieve one of them phallic victories.
Whoops!
Yeah, I’m gettin’ mental pictures that I’m not comfortable with.
In the fabled words of P.J. O’Rourke:
“Will the love that dare not speak its name please shut up?”
thanks, bfl
Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong wrong. Go ahead libs, and keep thinking it was the public's hatred of the Iraq war that got Democrats elected in 2006. It was only one reason democrats won: conservatives sat out of that election because of their absolute disgust at the way the Bush administration has poorly handled the issue of illegal aliens. Plain and simple. And keep thinking libs that you are going to continue winning elections just by people hating your opposition; and not winning on your own merit; your kool-aid will be ready very soon.
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