Maybe the biggest thing that surprised the hell out of me is that "moral values" were the issue that brought people out to the polls. Not Iraq. Not terrorism. Not the economy. It was not a shock that gay marriage bans passed in all the states it was up for a vote. Polls consistently showed that gay marriage was a tougher sell than civil unions. But what is shocking is that millions of Americans were afraid of gays marrying that they voted for Bush in order to protect marriage. For some reason, I feel a bit less safe as a gay man today.
Andrew Sullivan shares this chilling email he recieved today:
"I wonder if you noticed that yesterday all eleven states that considered the question of gay marriage voted to ban it. ALL ELEVEN. I think this sends a very clear message -- true Americans do not like your kind of homosexual deviants in our country, and we will not tolerate your radical pro-gay agenda trying to force our children to adopt your homosexual lifestyle. You should be EXTREMELY GRATEFUL that we even let you write a very public and influential blog, instead of suppressing your treasonous views (as I would prefer). But I'm sure someone like yourself would consider me just an "extremist" that you don't need to worry about. Well you are wrong -- I'm not just an extremist, I am a real American, and you should be worried because eleven states yesterday proved that there are millions more just like me who will not let you impose your radical agenda on our country."
So, I wonder how long it will be before the next Matthew Shepherd gets killed because of such views.
Posted by Dennis at November 3, 2004 11:28 PMThis statement is somewhat disturbing, but true: whoever brought this issue to the forefront today, now, to the Massachusetts Supreme Court, was not thinking in terms of Democratic party strategy. Not that I think that they necessarily should be, it's human rights we're talking about here! However, what you say is absolutely correct: this is a problem that will need to be remedied through education, and it is not something that will be remedied overnight. If the people who actually want to see it happen as soon as POSSIBLE recognized that it's not possible TOMORROW, maybe it would have been better to hold off and bring the challenges post-election. That way we wouldn't have a bunch of states amending their constitutions, or a campaign that used it QUITE easily to its advantage.
I think people forget that for ages, Massachusetts, New York, California... all of these states have had gay marriage bans. And essentially, they got to get used to the idea on their own time frame, which happens to be faster than many other states, for varying reasons. Now their role is to move the process along, and I think in this case whoever said that bringing it to the courts as an initial matter probably didn't help things. That strategy has historically *never* worked, except to bring the issue to the forefront.
Posted by: Socrateased at November 4, 2004 07:35 PMDennis,
I actually wrote an article back in October for Moderate Republican that discussed how the gay marriage issue was going to be the one thing that got people out to the polls in droves to vote for Bush. It was a bit on the bitter side, because I stated that the various places in the nation that pushed for gay marriage (whether through legal channels or not) had made this an election year issue that would swing the election - and that without it, without the marriage amendment in Congress, Bush might have lost without a wedge issue to motivate supporters.
At the time I was working on it, I floated the idea to my wife. She responded with "That's a very short-sighted view, how can you say that? There are more important issues than gay marriage, I don't think it's going to influence the election much at all."
Sure. To us, it's a non-issue. To some 20% of the population, if exit polls are accurate, it was the one thing that influenced their vote more than anything else. It can be very difficult to understand that people vote according to "moral issues" rather than economic or foreign issues. But that's how many people work - and if that's to be defeated, it has to be understood.
I ended up not submitting it to you, of course. It wouldn't have helped to have it out there, naturally. But maybe we wouldn't have been caught by surprise when it turned out the way I thought it would.
A side note - remember, you stated in an earlier post that 1 million gays voted for Bush in 2000, but 4 million evangelical fundamentalists stayed home - and Bush/Rove wanted those 4 million votes. What was the margin of the popular vote for Bush? About 3 million.
Posted by: Mark Kittel at November 4, 2004 12:54 PMThe email to Andrew Sullivan is ridiculous.
I voted for Bush - my first ballot for a Republican presidential candidate - because I liked how he promoted black progress in certain areas, his fiscal ideas on taxation and Social Security privatization, and on national security. I don't agree with him on certain social issues (e.g., abortion and gay marriage), but Kerry was highly problematic on national security with his 'global test' proposal.
Check out our analysis of how Ohio's black voters prevented Kerry from winning Ohio. Bush doubled his black support in Ohio (and in some other battleground states) from 2000, and gay marriage was probably a key reason.
Posted by: molotov at November 4, 2004 10:50 AMAndrew Sullivan should give that fuckers email out. I'll give him a peice of my mind.
Hearing him speak of being a true american is disheartening. I use to be against gay marriage but I have seen the light.
Post his email addy PLS!!!!!!
Posted by: Rob at November 4, 2004 10:40 AMThis is just sick. And I am really afraid that he is right. There are millions of Americans just like him.
I just don't get this ridiculous animosity towards gays. How can people actually think that there is some GAY AGENDA to try "to force our children to adopt your homosexual lifestyle"? Why are so many americans so damn ignorant?
Posted by: Curtis at November 4, 2004 08:04 AM