POLITICS MAKES STRANGE BEDFELLOWS. Just ask Rand Paul and Tina
Brown.
Two days after President Obama made the dramatic yet
unsurprising announcement that he supports same-sex marriage, Paul,
Kentucky’s junior senator, joked to an Iowa crowd: “Call me
cynical, but I wasn’t sure his views on marriage could get any
gayer.” Then Brown, editor in chief of Newsweek, dubbed
Obama THE FIRST GAY PRESIDENT on the magazine’s cover, which
featured a photo illustration—at least one assumes it wasn’t a
straight photo—of the president with a rainbow halo.
Paul’s joke was widely condemned, with the lefties at
ThinkProgress.org crowing that “even Tony Perkins” of the
conservative Family Research Council found it “unacceptable.” Of
course, although Paul and Brown made essentially the same joke, the
tone was different. Paul’s jest was mocking, while Brown’s was a
sympathetic in-joke. The Newsweek article was written by
Andrew Sullivan, who had made “The Case for Gay Marriage” in a
New Republic cover story way back in 1989.
Yet if you think about the substance of the joke rather than the
tone, Brown’s version was worse, or at least was representative of
something worse. Paul, it seems safe to say, was expressing the
views of the majority of his constituents, nearly 75 percent of
whom voted in favor of a 2004 amendment to the state constitution
affirming the traditional definition of marriage. Politicians are
supposed to take sides on questions of public policy.
News reporters are not. To be sure, Sullivan is an opinion
writer, and one can reasonably argue that Newsweek long
ago gave up any pretense of delivering straight news. But in the
coverage of Obama’s same-sex marriage announcement, it was striking
how much even reporters seemed to have abandoned evenhandedness to
propagandize on one side of a divisive social issue.
The most interesting aspect of this propaganda was that it
sought to deliver two contrary messages: that Obama’s declaration
was a great act of courage, and that it entailed no political risk.
Consider this piece from the New York Times, datelined
Charlotte, North Carolina:
On Tuesday, the voters in this state went to their polling
stations and, by a landslide margin, elected to join the voters in
30 other states in enshrining a ban on same-sex marriages in the
State Constitution. The next day, President Obama, perhaps buoyed
by repeated polls showing support for same-sex marriage nationally,
announced his personal support for it.
And in the days after that, people here and elsewhere concluded
that, when November rolls around, this public disagreement between
the president and a large majority of voters in this state on a
burning social issue will not make much difference at all.
“People here and elsewhere”—that covers pretty much everyone,
doesn’t it?
It’s true that a series of opinion polls have shown a plurality
or even a slight majority of Americans Favoring same-sex marriage.
There is little doubt that public opinion has become more accepting
of the idea in recent years. But there is also good reason to think
that these polls are systematically overestimating support for
same-sex marriage.
Same-sex marriage has lost in every state—more than 30—where the
question has been put to the voters. Granted, those were mostly
socially conservative states. But even voters in liberal
ones—California, Maine, and Oregon—opposed the idea, albeit by
narrow margins. Perhaps by now some socially liberal states have
tipped and would vote in favor. But if liberal states are closely
divided on the question and conservative states are overwhelmingly
against, there’s no way that can add up to a nationwide majority in
favor.
In North Carolina, the Times noted, “it came as a
surprise to many on both sides that the vote was so decisive.” A
March poll by Elon University had found that Tar Heelers opposed
the amendment preventing same-sex marriages and other unions, 60
percent to 32 percent. The actual vote essentially inverted those
numbers: 61 percent for, 39 percent against.
What accounts for the disparity between opinion surveys and
actual plebiscites? My hypothesis is that the media’s vicious
treatment of gay-marriage opponents intimidates some into
concealing their true view when polled. A reader of my online
Wall Street Journal column, who asks to remain anonymous,
makes the point vividly:
With a marriage amendment on the ballot in Minnesota, we have
been assaulted by the progay- marriage media and social-media
coverage. I say assaulted, because the message is not a positive
argument for gay marriage, but rather a tarring as bigots of those
who believe in the traditional definition of marriage. So of course
polls would undercount support for the traditional view of
marriage.
A person could tell a pollster that he believes in a position
and risk the pollster thinking that he is bigoted, or he could toe
the media line, give the pollster a fulsome answer of support, and
then vote his conscience privately.
I know what I do (and anything more public than this e-mail
could risk my career).
Yet if you look carefully at the polls, you can find indications
of doubt. “Six in 10 Say Obama Same-Sex Marriage View Won’t Sway
Vote,” read Gallup’s headline for a survey released a few days
after the Obama announcement. In truth, it will probably sway the
votes of a lot fewer than 4 in 10. The poll found that 24 percent
of Democrats said they were more likely to vote for Obama, and 52
percent of Republicans less likely. One can discount their answers
as expressions of approval or disapproval rather than realistic
estimates of the probability of their voting differently, which was
already close to zero. (On the other hand, it’s possible the
strikingly higher Republican number portends a bigger turnout.)
BUT IF THE PRESIDENTIAL election is close, the issue needn’t
change the minds of large numbers of voters in order to prove
important or even decisive. Gallup’s findings suggest that it is
considerably more likely to sway voters against Obama than for him.
Among Democrats, 10 percent said they were less likely to vote for
him, while only 2 percent of Republicans said they were more
likely. And 23 percent of independents said less likely, and just
11 percent more likely.
In the same poll, 51 percent of all respondents said they
approved of same-sex marriage; only 45 percent disapproved. That
may reassure Obama supporters, but it ought to unsettle them
instead. Even in a sample professing unrealistically high support
for same-sex marriage, Obama’s backing seemed to be more harmful to
him than beneficial.
Indeed, a week after Obama’s announcement, a New York
Times poll found Mitt Romney ahead of the president, 46
percent to 43 percent. That survey’s findings on same-sex marriage
were more believable than those of other recent polls. Respondents
op posed it, 51 percent to 42 percent, though a majority ac cepted
either marriage or nonmarital civil unions when the latter was
offered as an alternative.
The Times’s headline finding was that an overwhelming
majority of respondents, 67 percent, thought the president backed
same-sex marriage “mostly for political reasons,” while only 24
percent thought he did it “mostly because he thinks it is right.”
Obama seems to have managed the neat trick of looking like a
cynical opportunist while embracing an unpopular
position.
