President Obama and his lieutenants aren’t the only ones whose
views on same-sex marriage are “evolving.”
Republicans — including prominent conservative office-holders,
pundits and activists — are increasingly endorsing key parts of
the gay-rights agenda.
What do former Vice President Dick Cheney, Governor Chris
Christie, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus,
former Governor Sarah Palin, columnist Ann Coulter and anti-tax
activist Grover Norquist have in common? They’re all prominent
conservatives, and they’ve all made overtures to the gay
community.
Cheney publicly endorsed gay marriage years ago. In January,
Christie appointed New Jersey’s first openly gay Supreme Court
justice. Priebus has done fundraisers with the Log Cabin
Republicans, a gay rights group. Palin hinted that she supported
repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.” Coulter and Norquist sit on the
advisory board of GOProud, a gay conservative advocacy group.
There have been noteworthy developments at the state and federal
levels. In March, a majority of New Hampshire Republican
legislators joined Democrats to reject a bill that would have
repealed a gay marriage law and replaced it with civil unions. And
in 2011, New York legalized same-sex marriage with the decisive
support of four Republican senators, marking the first time in the
nation that a legislative body controlled by Republicans approved
either same-sex marriage or civil unions. According to a recent
Politico story,
House Republicans have “quietly worked behind the scenes to kill
amendments that reaffirm opposition to same-sex unions.”
Politico reporters interviewed House Republicans and found
that gay issues “hardly register” with them.
Politico describes the change as “one of the swiftest
shifts in ideology and strategy for Republicans, as they’ve come
nearly full circle on same-sex politics. What was once a
front-and-center issue for rank-and-file Republicans — the subject
of many hotly worded House and Senate floor speeches — is
virtually a dead issue.”
The easy explanation is that economic concerns have momentarily
eclipsed social issues. But many conservatives are simply not
interested in issues related to homosexuality. As Rep. Allen West
told Politico, “I want my daughters to have the
opportunities that I had, and that’s what concerns me. That’s what
keeps me up awake at night, not worrying about who’s sleeping with
who.”
I asked Jimmy LaSalvia, co-founder of GOProud, why Republican
sentiment toward gay rights has changed so quickly. “It used to be
that the only gay people most people saw were once a year on TV at
the San Francisco gay pride parade,” LaSalvia said. “Today everyone
in America has gay people in their lives. America is changing its
mind. It’s happening very, very fast and conservatives are a part
of that.”
Part of LaSalvia’s job is to convince Republicans and gay people
that they are natural allies. LaSalvia seems to be having some
success. Exit polls showed 19 percent of gay voters voted for Bush
in 2004 and 27 percent for McCain in 2008. In 2010, polls showed 31
percent of gay voters voted for a Republican in their congressional
race.
LaSalvia says most Republicans have welcomed GOProud to the
fold. “I go all over the country and gay people come up to me and
say, ‘I’m not ready to vote Republican yet, but I’m really
conservative.’”
He continued: “I speak at colleges once or twice a month,
and every single time I’ve gone to a college the speech has been
sponsored by the campus conservative group or the College
Republicans. Not that long ago that speech would have been
sponsored by the campus gay group. Whenever I’m at a conservative
event like CPAC, my experience is overwhelmingly positive. I always
hear ‘We’re so glad you’re here.’ And I hear all the time from big
names in the conservative movement, ‘I can’t say it publicly yet,
but I support you’re right to marry.’ I also hear ‘it’s not an
issue for me.’”
Tellingly, few conservatives are willing to make the fundamental
moral argument against homosexuality. Instead, conservatives argue
against repeal of “don’t ask, don’t tell” by asserting that open
homosexuality erodes troop morale; against gay marriage by
insisting it violates religious freedom by forcing religious social
services groups like Catholic Charities to place children with gay
couples; and against court-imposed same-sex nuptials by contending
that voters should decide.
Those may be valid arguments. But they don’t get to the heart of
the case against gay rights, which is that homosexuality is immoral
and harmful to those involved and to society. Once the moral
argument is conceded, it’s only a matter of time before the entire
argument is lost.
So when we hear Mitt Romney say that gay couples are “just as
loving and [can] raise children well,” as he did in one of the
Republican debates, it weakens to the point of rupture his argument
against same-sex marriage.
It’s difficult to imagine that the case against abortion would
be anywhere near as powerful if the moral element were removed from
the argument.
None of this means Republican voters have changed their minds.
In fact, polls show declining support for same-sex
marriage among self-identified Republicans. A recent Gallup poll
found Republican support has dropped to 22 percent, from 28
percent in 2011.
And a recent Pew poll
found support slipping from 27 percent to 23 percent over the
last year.
Social conservatives will continue to claim some victories.
Yesterday, North Carolina voters passed
Amendment One, which will bring to 30 the number of states
whose constitutions ban same-sex marriage.
But these may be the last gasps of opposition to a cause all but
a few Republican lawmakers and conservative leaders seem
uninterested in fighting.
