Does the Republican Party know where it stands on gay rights?
Answer: nope, not a clue. Public opinion on gay marriage and LGBT rights in general has been noticeably shifting toward acceptance over the past decade, but until now the GOP has had cover: even high-ranking Democrats weren't publicly endorsing gay marriage, meaning for all that Republicans were on the wrong side of the issue, there was very little fallout. Who were people going to vote for instead, the the other party that didn't favor gay marriage?
That all changed last Wednesday. Obama's (legislatively meaningless) endorsement of marriage equality drew a much sharper line between the two parties, leaving the GOP in complete disarray as to what they support and why.
The GOP's platform is based significantly on Federalism, the idea that states have a right to govern their own mores. On everything, apparently, except gay marriage, for which they favor a federal amendment to the constitution. This allowed Obama to usurp the states' rights argument, squaring the circle on gay marriage: he gets both credit for pushing a civil right and credit for respecting the states, while the GOP are left holding a poisonous constitutional amendment bid that's never going to happen.
(Want to keep up-to-date on LGBT issues? Join EqualitOlogy!)
It's apparently fallen to RNC Chairman Reince Priebus to get the party out of this corner, and he's having a tough time of it. First, here's Priebus on gay marriage and Federalism:
I think Governor Romney and the Republican Party have been pretty clear. We believe marriage is between one man and one woman. We believe, ultimately, that you can’t federalize that kind of mandate, which is why we believe that individual states can make those decisions on their own, and they’re doing that across the country. So we’ve been clear.
Not so fast. Romney signed a pledge to uphold DOMA, the national Defense of Marriage Act, exactly the type of mandate Priebus was talking about. Priebus tried to wiggle out of that on Meet the Press last Sunday:
PRIEBUS: Well, first of all, I agree with the Governor.
GREGORY: Did you misspeak?
PRIEBUS: Perhaps it was inartful. [...]
GREGORY: The issue is: you said, “Don’t federalize it.” The nominee of the party says, “Federalize it,” a constitutional ban. Is that what the party believes?
PRIEBUS: Of course.
GREGORY: And it should be part of the platform?
PRIEBUS: It is part of the platform. And for the record, we do agree with the marriage amendment, and we do agree with DOMA, but as we sit today, we don’t have a federal mandate — excuse me, a federal — excuse me, a constitutional amendment.
To summarize, the GOP both does and does not consider gay marriage a states' rights issue. Priebus went on to state that they agreed with the national protection of some gay rights, like "equal rights, in regards to say, discrimination in the workplace," just not marriage. This raised some eyebrows in the GOP, as the Employee Non-Discrimination Act currently working its way through Congress is not especially popular in the Republican Party (and was the threat of a Bush veto that last time it was tried).
So the RNC Chair is now simultaneously at odds with his party's nominee and his party's congressional leaders, all while holding internally inconsistent positions about almost every aspect of gay rights. Good work, Priebus.
Meanwhile, Mitt Romney can't make up his mind what he thinks about gay adoption. After Obama's Wednesday announcement, Romney used his support of gay adoption to get him out of talking explicitly about gay marriage. On Wednesday, Romney told Fox News:
If two people of the same gender want to live together, want to have a loving relationship, or even to adopt a child—in my state individuals of the same sex were able to adopt children. In my view, that’s something that people have a right to do. But to call that marriage is something that in my view is a departure from the real meaning of that word.
That lasted two days. "Actually," Romney said Friday, "I think all states but one allow gay adoption. So that’s a position which has been decided by most of the state legislatures, including the one in my state some time ago. So I simply acknowledge the fact that gay adoption is legal in all states but one."
The Moderate Voice calls Romney on this, saying that state standards for adoption vary wildly (Federalism!), and point out that this is actually the third or fourth position Romney has taken on gay adoptions; he's already once indicated he favors them and once used the states' right escape hatch.
Initial commentary on Obama's endorsement of gay marriage focused on its political costs to him. It looks like the real costs are being incurred by a Republican Party that has absolutely no idea what to do now that their lack of position is their position.
---
Join: PoliticOlogy
Follow: Evan McMurry @evanmcmurry | PoliticOlogy @OlogyPolitics
Comments (1)