Gay Parties

Coming out of the electoral closet.

By Adam Jack Gomolin, UC-Berkeley and Alex Halpern Levy, Wesleyan University

Gay marriage is not misunderstood, but rather misperceived. The basic concept—two members of the same sex getting hitched—is, if not innocuous, at least simple to understand. The common belief, however, that gay marriage is an issue of primarily near-term electoral importance, is incorrect. Since before President Clinton signed the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) into law, social conservatives have sought to ban gay marriage; set against them, gay-rights groups have petitioned for legal parity. For the former, outlawing gay marriage represents a crucial victory in the ongoing battle against a decadent and morally bankrupt America. For the latter, securing gay marriage represents a long-sought certificate of admission into mainstream American society. This political tug-of-war draws great attention, while overshadowing the undeniable: today’s young American voters are far more gay-friendly than their boomer parents. Gay marriage and related gay rights issues will not be resoundingly decided in the short-term, but rather in the ascendance of today’s gay-friendly young heterosexuals to electoral dominance. With them, America’s two parties may be profoundly reshaped.

As with previous generations, young Americans today are more progressive than their parents and grandparents. During the 1950s and 1960s, this progressivism manifested itself in the civil rights movement; during the 1960s and 1970s, it continued in the women’s rights movement. Today, youthful progressivism is (partly) displayed in the gay rights movement and rising support for gay America. A decade ago, 27 percent of Americans thought that gay marriage should be legal. Today, this number is 39 percent. Far more important, however, is the manner in which this number breaks down across age groups. Senior citizens are 4 to 1 in opposition to gay marriage. Voters age 35-55 are 2 to 1 in opposition to gay marriage. But what of today’s young voters? Voters aged 18-30 are roughly 1 to 1: they are evenly divided on gay marriage. This seems to suggest an arithmetically pre-determined electoral outcome: will today’s third graders be 2 to 1 in favor of gay marriage? They vote in 2016.

Democratic Party leadership takes gay America for granted. With the exception of Russ Feingold (D-WI), no national political figure speaks in unabashedly pro-gay terms. This is understandable, for as long as the Republican Party caters to social conservatives (rather than libertarians) the Democratic Party is the only progressive show in town. In this respect, there are two possible avenues ahead for the Democrats. First, the Democratic National Committee leadership could place gay rights at the forefront of its national agenda. But re defining right and wrong for every citizen and state legislature risks a conservative counter-attack. Second, and more likely, the Democratic Party could continue with political business as usual, enjoying the votes (and financial support) of gay Americans while only half-heartedly representing their interests. In this, Democrats guardedly retain the votes of more socially conservative blue collar workers. This is the play-it-safe option: after all, why would Democrats risk a backlash when they could wait 20 years and let demographic shifts solve their gay rights predicament?

The GOP is anti-gay. Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman based the 2004 campaign on “mobilizing millions of culturally conservative voters upset about gay marriage (…) and other threats to traditional values.” On the Senate floor last week, Orrin Hatch (R-UT) asserted that gay marriage “might not be a major issue for those who live inside the beltway, but for good, decent, clean Americans across the country this is a crucial issue.” Can Mehlman’s strategy or Hatch’s attitude resonate in a future electorate evenly divided on gay marriage? The Republican Party has two options. First, if it continues with its present policies, it will watch its base crumble as elderly social conservatives are slowly replaced in the electorate by young social progressives. Second, a bold (and perhaps unlikely) move: the Republican Party can return to its small government roots. It can take gay marriage off the national agenda and allow individual states to legislate as they see fit. It can decide that the role of the government is not to tell people how to live their lives, and that the government that governs best dictates least. In this, the GOP must balance the base it has with the base it stands to gain.

Each generation finds gay marriage more palatable than the previous one. Equally importantly, research consistently indicates that social progressivism developed in youth remains constant over a lifetime: support for gay marriage is here to stay. Seventy percent of young Americans believe that gay marriage is a legislative “inevitability” in their lifetime. But ensconced on the pages of www.independentgayforum.com, which is dedicated to “forging a gay mainstream,” one finds that many gays are not seeking a watershed Supreme Court decision on marriage. The “gay mainstream” does not want a “gay Roe.” Indeed, such a decision could bequeath social conservatives the electoral windfall that many argue the actual Roe yields in the abortion debate. It would allow Republicans to pander to an ultra-conservative minority while retaining the votes of centrists who believe gay marriage will be sufficiently protected by the judiciary.

While some (particularly the young) are content to quietly push and patiently wait for this “inevitability,” many wish to see gay marriage fully devolve to state control. Yet others believe that government should get out of the marriage business altogether. In the meantime, Americans should remember that there is no law that cannot be overturned. Ultimately, gay marriage may well break the backs of our current coalitions. Those who yearn for an unabashedly progressive and pro-gay Democratic party may well get their wish. Those who desire to see the Republican Party return to its libertarian roots may too get their wish, because many Americans prefer a small government that declines to interfere to a big government that dictates right and wrong. The fight for gay rights may well transform our parties into what many of us deeply wish they were. In the meantime, to paraphrase a contemporary poet, we go to the polls with the parties we have, not the parties we wish we had.

Adam Jack Gomolin is co-director of BeyondPartisan.org and a graduate student at The Goldman School of Public Policy, The University of California at Berkeley. He can be reached at gomolin@beyondpartisan.org.

Alex Halpern Levy is a Campus Progress intern and an undergraduate at Wesleyan University. He will attend the London School of Economics in the Fall.

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