Halfway

This is the sort of thing where my utter lack of personal, familial, or social ties to the American intolerance belt makes me a bit useless as a pundit, but I wonder about the Democrats' efforts to position themselves on the gay marriage issue. They're against equal civil marriage rights because that's unpopular. At the same time, they can't completely alienate their equality-supporting backers, so they're essentially all in favor of everything else on the gay rights agenda.

Under the circumstances, I can't help but wonder who it is who's supposed to be fooled by this. After all, if someone emailed me and said "it's very important to me that gay and lesbian couples not be allowed to marry -- who should I vote for?" it would be malpractice for me to respond by saying "oh, it doesn't matter, all the candidates have the same view on this." On the contrary, any of the major Democratic contenders is much more likely to wind up appointing judges who look sympathetically on legal arguments against marriage discrimination, and all support enacting an array of anti-discrimination laws that will undermine the idea that the government has a "rational basis" for marriage discrimination.

Clearly, these points are subtle enough that someone might overlook them. But surely any cultural conservatives who place a lot of emphasis on these questions is aware of the importance of judicial nominations. Similarly, anyone driven by gut-level dislike of gays and lesbians is bound to notice that the Democratic Party is a poor vehicle for such sentiments.

Comments

You might be able to sort out who values gay rights least and is therefore least likely to spend political capital in that area. That's valuable information for some.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | August 12, 2007 3:41 PM

While true as it goes that those who the Democrats are trying to reach aren't the gays shall burn in hell people but the gays having the icky sex and I'd rather not think about it people. Consider them the Saletan squishies. They have no moral argument or really an intellectual one, they just rather think its all unpleasant to deal with.

Posted by Rob | August 12, 2007 3:50 PM

Is Oregon part of the American 'intolerance belt'? Gay marriage was defeated soundly at the polls there. Perhaps intolerance wasn't the reason?

Posted by Fred | August 12, 2007 3:56 PM

My instinct (and coming from Bethesda, MD, I'm pretty far removed from the intolerance belt myself) is that there are a surprising number of people who are willing to consider civil unions for gay and lesbian Americans, but are hung up on marriage. When a politician says that, it feels like an evasion. But I wouldn't be surprised if there is a substantial chunk of Americans who feel torn on this issue are saying "don't push me" to a candidate. I don't think this wins them any votes--but it might prevent them from losing some.

Posted by David Schraub | August 12, 2007 4:02 PM

Rob is right. There are plenty of religious conservatives -- some in my extended family -- who are very ready to vote for a Democrat this time and just need a little cover so that they can do so without feeling like they're betraying their principles. In other words, it fools people who want to be fooled.

Unfortunately abortion is a much higher salience issue and one in which this sort of finessing is not really possible.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | August 12, 2007 4:09 PM

On reflection the people I'm talking about are not the same ones as Rob is. but there's probably some truth to his version too.

Posted by lemuel pitkin | August 12, 2007 4:10 PM

It isn't just fools wanting to be fooled. I think sometimes the pretense is enough to satisfy people. Just like some of the assholes I know that talk about how great it would be if all the homosexuals went back into the closet, it would be enough for them to see that that's where the Democrats have stored their own homosexual sympathies.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 12, 2007 4:23 PM

To echo many of the comments, I think there are a large number of Americans who, if push comes to shove, are *against* gay marriage.

But they would rather not deal with the issue at all, so if Dem candidates take it off the table, they can base their vote on other matters, ones they do care about.

Look, it isn't terribly high-minded, and I wish it weren't so, but that is the reality the Dems running for national office must deal with--and if at the end of the day they are elected and can enact pro-gay policies on discrimination, and favorable judges (wink), then the country, and gay people, will be better off.

Posted by Andruw | August 12, 2007 4:31 PM

I know very well a kind, loving, decent evangelical protestant who "gets" that it really sucks to have no legal rights with your life partner. She would not, even though she thinks it is morally wrong to have a same-sex partner, oppose laws that guaranteed rights similar to or the same as marriage. But the word "marriage" for it would create real opposition in her. I do not understand this p.o.v., but there it is.

All that being said, I'm with A.S.. It's the dignity.

It is rather a moot point because she would never vote for a pro-choice candidate.

Posted by Chris J | August 12, 2007 4:42 PM

Democrats are afraid of attack adds featuring the gay bikers in wedding gowns. They feel that attack adds featuring civil union certificates and winking liberal judges will not pack the same punch among swing voters in Ohio, Virginia and Colorado.

Posted by jburnout | August 12, 2007 4:56 PM

people who are willing to consider civil unions for gay and lesbian Americans, but are hung up on marriage. When a politician says that, it feels like an evasion. - David Schraub

Except the thing is that most people, at some level, want a leadership from those who, well, lead. People may be squishy on various issues from abortion to homosexuality to national security, but they want leaders who are not.

Who is closer to mainstream public opinion? A DLCer or a right-wing pseudo-religious nut (RWPRN) ... I'd venture (except maybe on certain economic issues where the DLC is to the right of most people ... although many people are so conditioned to think of Democrats as being tax and spend liberals, people, who may be more economically liberal than DLCers, would still find a DLC-Dem. "too liberal", not for any specific reason, but just based on prejudice) the DLCer. OTOH, much of the public would find the RWPRN to be more "moral" and a "better leader" and would vote for said person, not because they agree with his morality or what he wants to do as leader, but because he shows signs of, um, actually leading rather than evading pressing issues.

FWIW, I'm not being a fascist when I say that it's a good thing that people want leaders to be strong and not evasive. It's not un-democratic to expect a leader to be a mere reflection of the people. Indeed, in a republic, we the people hire people to lead us just as we hire people to be police or fire-fighters or what have you. The idea of the leader as everyman is actually, in an ironic way, an aristocratic one -- only aristocrats have "the common touch".

We Democrats need to embrace the idea that, in a republic, the voters ideally should view elections as a job candidate selection process in which they hire the person who is best at being the holder of the office in question. And when that office is President, part of being the best is displaying leadership and not being squishy.

The "Dems. are effete" meme comes not from Dems. being too left wing, but from Dems. being squishy. Most people are closer politically to the DLC than to us moonbats. But I'd argue, just as a RWPRN is more likely to get the votes of the unwashed masses than a DLCer would be, so would one of us moonbats, if we played our cards right (and how to reach out to people is an issue): because people want leadership from the people they are hiring to do the job of leading the country. And they are not wrong for wanting this!

Posted by DAS | August 12, 2007 5:06 PM

This is the sort of thing where my utter lack of personal, familial, or social ties to the American intolerance belt makes me a bit useless as a pundit

Yes, you are more useful as a pundit when blogging about the Rich Harvard Elitist Out of Touch With Reality belt.

Posted by jerry | August 12, 2007 5:12 PM

DAS--I think you're both right and wrong. I do think people want leadership, but, aside from the very extremes on both sides, they don't want leadership on this issue.

Posted by mop | August 12, 2007 5:17 PM

There are significantly more people who support civil unions than those who support gay marriage. Gay marriage will also get lots of folks riled up who you might not really want to rile up.

I also agree with some comments above. Gay equality issues are not really a high priority right now, nor should they be.

Posted by Korha | August 12, 2007 5:27 PM

I wouldn't count on the public passively accepting each and everything an activist lawyer dressed up in black robes tries shoving down their throats.

My feeling is the public is fed up with judges bypassing our democratic systems to impose stuff their political mentors can't get passed by a vote.

For a long time, the Left has been trying to convince the people that we do not have 3 co-equal branches of Federal Gov't and a whole separate sphere left to states - but instead an Israeli/Jewish Progressive System - where the Courts stand above all others - and not only can legislate from the Bench, but have final word on it.
At the same time, same people say American sovereignity ends when "international law" conflicts with it. Much of that law stuff composed by lawyers for Leftist Euro Parties and progressive NGOs that were only voted on by "official UN subcommittees" - not passed by vote or assent of any elected American institution.

So don't think for a minute that a 5-4 vote of lawyers in black robes that determined "hidden words" in the Constitution requires gay marriage, Muslim polygamy marriages, end to the death penalty, outlawing gun ownership, or any number of things will be accepted by the people.

The way I see it, the Courts and the lawyer elites get a few passes usurping the power of the people and their elected representatives, but each time the anger directed at their over reach and legitimacy to do so, mounts.

The time approaches where Congress or the President is due to issue a "Fuck you!" to the Courts and lawyer-elites pushing agenda - to wild approval of the majority of the public.

Posted by Chris Ford | August 12, 2007 5:27 PM

Folks, here's the problem. I saw a scorecard the other day at some site that ranked all the presidential candidates. It ranked those who were for civil unions for gays and those who were for marriage for gays. Well let me tell you...you can go into any state in the union as a heterosexual and you can marry your partner in any church on the block. In fact you can marry them in ALL of the churches on the block, but you know what? You won't be married until you get the license the state provides for marriage. So in that respect, every marriage is sanctioned by the state as a civil union. Atheists can be "married." Hindu's can be "married." But the marriage ceremony is for many people just a quasi-religious tradition. Two Catholics who just went through a $20,000 full mass and service are just as married as the atheist and his Wiccan girlfriend who took their license to a Justice of the Peace and were done in 5 minutes. I'm afraid the notion of gay "marriage" is a sort of romantic ideal, when in fact, all we need is the state to sanction their union with the same rights and privileges that they guarantee to any two schlubs who want to tie the knot. Marriage is a religious construct. The state sanctions unions civilly and may not deny your right to form a union based on your religion. Let's take the next logical step and say the the state may not deny your right to form a union based on your gender preference. Forget gay "marriage." It's religious nonsense.

Posted by Primigeius | August 12, 2007 5:32 PM

I think Matt's analysis is spot-on if you are truly concerned (as I certainly am) with advancing the legal rights and social respect of gay people. But as a critique of election strategy I think it might fall short.

As others on this thread have noted, the calculation being made is not to "win-over" the gay bashers in the south or in some parts of the midwest. Rather, it is presumably to avoid being defined as the party which is mostly committed to gay activism, which at this time can have its disadvantages (sadly).

Look: there are many swing voters in this nation, of decent and tolerant mind, whose main worries are economic related - and such people would indeed be recruitable for the Democrats. But if the right-wing succeeds in painting the Democratic party as advancing the causes only of small, minority "special interests", then those people might stay home on election day, or worse vote republican.

Even at this hour, I don't think being seen as pro-gay is nearly as unpopular as many on the right and left make it out to be. But being seen as s narrowly-focused, special-interest party is and always will remain unpopular.

Posted by Neal Murray | August 12, 2007 5:50 PM

I do hope Chris Ford talks to many people of my aquaintance who are generally moderate if not liberal folks but who shy away from more liberal Democrats because, as far as they are concerned, we are not sufficiently pro-Israeli. If Chris Ford were to give speeches for the Jewish community, perhaps he could convince vacillating Jewish moderates that there is nothing to be afraid of from us moonbats as the left is pro-Israeli after all? ;)

Seriously, though, as far as the "we shouldn't let activist judges make up rights" argument goes, I wonder how Chris Ford and his ilk feel about Brown, Loving, etc.? My freedom to marry my fiancee would not have happened if such decisions were left to the people rather than the courts. And saying that "well, now such a thing is accepted, so it woulda just happened a few years later if it were not done by the courts" isn't a good argument as perhaps it's only more acceptable because people are allowed to do it because of the courts' rulings!

Of course, I am aware people have made the opposite argument, e.g., about Roe v. Wade ...

Posted by DAS | August 12, 2007 5:52 PM

mop,

Perhaps they don't. But do they want a lack of leadership, so to speak? Nu? Politicians still need to be careful not to sound too evasive.

Posted by DAS | August 12, 2007 5:54 PM

Wow, Chris Ford finally, really goes off the rails in a post of true right-wing, and dare I say it, anti-Semitic paranoia.

But I still salute you for giving Kevin Gamble a chance back in '91.

Posted by Andruw | August 12, 2007 6:18 PM

DAS - You clearly know that the Israeli political model is unique in the world in alowing their supreme court to pull legislation out of their asses, and do so with impunity because the Socialist-Progressives in Israel deliberately set the Court higher than the PM and ministries and the Knesset.

It's a problem in Israel. Many oppose the New Sanhedrin, as it is called, an unelected priesthood supreme
over a people. But Israel also has powerful forces that love the law, and want a lawyer-elite on top. (Israel has the highest percentage of lawyers per capita of any nation, the US is 2nd).

It is not a great idea for emulation, and attempts are being made in the EU and in the US by elites to transfer power away from the people and their elected representatives to lawyer-elites running unaccountable to courts and ministries (US-Fed bureaucracies).

My point was this "progressive" structure has caused extensive problems in Israel - so why spread it? Your insinuation appears to be any criticism of anything Israel is anti-semitic and Israel backers should "jump" to the Democrats if non-democrats oppose lawyer-elites running the country. Which may not be to Zionism's advantage to be associated with elitism. As is, Jews vote 85%-90% Democratic anyways in the last 11 Presidential elections..

And, DAS, I have no doubt that whatever elite is in charge of the Courts and Bureaucracies and usurping the will of the People could make things much nicer for special interest groups that fail at the ballot box. Gays, business interests seeking troughs full of fresh taxpayer pork, at the service of a dictatoral President or EU Central Committee. Or a Court that was once solidly in the pocket of the Likudnik "Greater Israel" Settlement movement, giving Orthodix special privileges over use of State Funds, and keeping Israeli Arabs in 2nd class citizenship.

Be careful of what you wish for.

Posted by Chris Ford | August 12, 2007 6:42 PM

DAS--I think you're exactly right. I think the best political move here is to be pro-"strong" civil unions, not for gay marriage, but in a non-evasive way. That's the key. The less evasive one sounds in articulating their position, the better off they are. That's why I thought Obama came off better than Edwards, and both better than Richardson, in the LOGO debate. Obama called the "marriage" issue semantics and re-iterated his support for full rights, and tied it into his history in civil rights law. Edwards talked about his journey, sounding close to all-out endorsing gay marriage before back-tracking. And Richardson, I thought, flubbed it badly when they put the question to him about the state legislature. After he talked about the politics of the possible, they basically set up a situation where "marriage" was the politics of the possible, and he dodged obviously. Obama and Edwards seemed to handle it better and sound less evasive (to my ear).

But yes, that's the key.

Posted by mop | August 12, 2007 6:51 PM

Chris Ford may have something of a point with the lawyer-elitism. Weren't attempts to put the gay marriage issue on the ballot in Massachusetts rebuffed by the courts claiming that gay marriage was an "established" civil right, and thus not subject to a vote?

Posted by Juan | August 12, 2007 7:00 PM

Juan - It was recognized as a right under the Massachusetts constitution, which means the ruling couldn't just be overridden by passing a law, because that law would be state-unconstitutional.

The ballot issue is different, though. That was a plan to amend the state constitution. The issue is, though, that before it makes it to plebicite, the legislature has to put its stamp of approval on the amendment in two consecutive sessions, and they haven't. Opponents are upset because they believe they would have had the votes in an open floor vote, but they contend that the state legislative leadership played procedural tricks to prevent that from happening.

So, you could still feasibly spin the "entrenched elites are thwarting the will of the people" angle, but not so much the "unelected' bit.

Posted by Senescent | August 12, 2007 7:26 PM

Is Oregon part of the American 'intolerance belt'? Gay marriage was defeated soundly at the polls there. Perhaps intolerance wasn't the reason?

No. Actually, intolerance was the reason. I would be quite impressed to hear an explanation for the general antipathy towards the concept of gay marriage that somehow wasn't incompatible with the notion of tolerance.

Posted by Gordon Lightfoot | August 12, 2007 8:42 PM

Matt,

I am a bit shocked that you have not grasped the fundamental point of the Presidential election. How to piss off the least number of voter blocks.

Seriously - if politicians could get away with it, they would basically just put ads with pictures of themselves and a name, or just supporting positions such as the affection of puppies and babies. Even attacking the opposition has its risks in the current environment, due to the increased ability of opposition groups to turn your own attacks against you. Or just

And, at the end of the day, the entire point of the process we call our Presidential election has been turned into the combination of each candidate trying to:

(a) Be the candidate most in the middle. You must, no matter what, always be the most centerline candidate. Take a look at almost every general election. Invariably, the candidate who is perceived as most centrist wins. This is because for some reason, the media has convinced us that anyone who does not adhere to the CW is a dangerous fringe candidate.

(b) Be the candidate the public most wants to hang out with. Bush has used this to his advantage in both his elections. People in this country for some reason, are concerned that they might be electing someone who they would not want to have a beer with. Yet, for positions such as doctors, lawyers, airline pilots, being cool is not considered a favorable attribute, being competent is. Yet, for the leader of the free world, competence is scorned, because, lets face it, the most competent people tend to "gasp" be smarter than we are, and often, not on the same social plane as we are.

Well - we get what we pay for.

Posted by Brad | August 12, 2007 8:55 PM

Senescent: Bullsh-t.

The referendum needed 50 votes (out of 200 legislators), and there was an open, hello-sunshine vote, everyone on the record.

And it got less than 50 (46, I think).

It was actually a pretty damn proud example of democracy.

Posted by Andruw | August 12, 2007 8:57 PM

Weren't attempts to put the gay marriage issue on the ballot in Massachusetts rebuffed by the courts claiming that gay marriage was an "established" civil right, and thus not subject to a vote?

No.

Oddly, I missed Chris Ford's rants about "lawyer elites" striking down modest local affirmative action programs although the 14th Amendment was clearly originally understood to permit them.

Posted by Scott Lemieux | August 12, 2007 10:19 PM

Matt lives in the not-that-there's-anything-wrong-with-that! belt.

Posted by Steve Sailer | August 12, 2007 10:56 PM

Weren't attempts to put the gay marriage issue on the ballot in Massachusetts rebuffed by the courts claiming that gay marriage was an "established" civil right, and thus not subject to a vote?

Yes. The Massachusetts lawyers dressed on robes on their Supreme Court "divined" hidden words lurking in invisible ink inside their Constitution saying "gay marriage is not just cool, it is a core civil right".

Then declared a referandum to put to to the people's vote "illegitimate" because only a "legislature" can decide to challenge weighty matters lawyers dressed in robes created out of nothingness. Once the almost all-democratic Legislature was charged by "the robes" with deciding if the people should vote - all the clout of the Democratic National Committee triggered by wealthy gay donors pushing the agenda descended on the state legislators threatening a vote for a referandum would be Democrat Party suicide.

Not surprisingly, the average Massachusetts person, according to polls, is very resentful of powerful gays that took away their right to vote on the matter.

**********************
Oddly, I missed Chris Ford's rants about "lawyer elites" striking down modest local affirmative action programs although the 14th Amendment was clearly originally understood to permit them.

Posted by Scott Lemieux

Show me where the 14th was ever set up with the "understanding" it would help institutionalize racism, reverse or not. Affirmative action stated as a Nixon Administration "tool" developed by 2 lawyers at EEO to meet goals of distributing Federal moneys more evenly in the US population in Federal contracts and hiring. After Nixon's fall, the McGovernites then used activist lawyers to spread it far and wide as obligatory quotas, made pervasive down to the local level...
The people never voted on it. Only lawyer-elites.

America's worst festering cancers tend to be those imposed on The People by lawyer elites without the public ever having a chance to debate, reach a majority consensus and exercise the power our Constitution is supposed to give them through their elected officials...not their unaccountable to anyone Lawyer-Priests, many with lifetime titles...That is not what America was set up to do, it was never the intent or will of any American generation.

But it happened.

Some of America's greatest progress came not when Courts legislated, but when Jefferson, Jackson, Lincoln, FDR, and an enraged public (the Grange revolt, the Bank scandal, the union movement 1900-1915) had the courage to stand and say "fuck you!" to lawyers in their pretty robes when they went too far.

Posted by Chris Ford | August 12, 2007 11:08 PM

They aren't afraid of losing the votes of informed and committed gay rights opponents -- those votes are lost already. They're worried about losing relatively uninformed working-class swing voters to 30-second attack ads.

Posted by Neil the Ethical Werewolf | August 13, 2007 1:39 AM

"America's worst festering cancers tend to be those imposed on The People by lawyer elites..."

Lawyers owned the plantations? You learn something new every day.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | August 13, 2007 8:00 AM

Sure, a lot of people are against gay marriuage, but for how many people is that their issue of highest importance? How many people decide who to vote for based on their stand on gay marriage, or gay issues in general? I would be surprised if the percentage were in the double digits.
Someone mentioned Oregon above. Well, Oregon may have enacted a gay marrige ban, but it also voted for John Kerry, as did Michigan.

Posted by JonF | August 13, 2007 8:52 AM

"Marriage is a religious construct. "

Note that to the extent this means "needs to be created in a religious ceremony", it's actually wrong. A couple who get married in a totally secular ceremony in front of a civil celebrant are still considered validly married by all major religions, and in particular their marriage is considered to have the all-important property of making sex between them legal. In extremis you don't even need the civil celebrant, just an exchange of promises, i.e., a common law marriage.

Of course, the same religions would insist that God ordained the institution in the first place and is looking on even if the couple doesn't recognize this, but it makes no practical difference. The gate-keeping function was long ago happily handed over to the government and however much religious groups may complain about the government purporting to marry same-sex couples, there's no way they'll want the overall responsibility back.

Posted by Mark Barton | August 13, 2007 9:11 AM

I am a bit shocked that you have not grasped the fundamental point of the Presidential election. How to piss off the least number of voter blocks. - Brad

I dunno. Democrats actually have grasped this "lesson" quite well and look where it gets them.

Part of it is, as you point out in your comment, the issue of "perception". A Democrat could run to the right of Atilla the Hun, but the media would still call that Democrat a liberal, because the media always thinks in stock phrases like "liberal Democrat", "beleagered [political appointee in trouble]", etc(*). And people, perceiving (based on being told this repeatedly) the media to be liberal will say "wow ... if the Dem. is too liberal for the media, she must be way too liberal for me".

But the other part is that while it's important not to piss off so many people you can't win, elections in our system are not won by majorities but by pluralities in a plurality of states. And this is the lesson Dems. fail to get. If you are too bland, sure a majority of people will be ok with you being president (except they'll hate you 'cause you're a slick politician who doesn't stand for anything), but they won't get out and vote. However, if you piss off the right group of people (e.g. Bush pissed off us dirty hippies), then those people who hate, e.g. dirty hippies, will come out to vote for your candidate. And if you have pluralities in enough states, you win!

You can piss off the majority of people in the nation, but if the pissed off people are still in the mindset that "both candidates are equally bad" and hence simply don't show up at the polls (rather than voting for the opposing candidate) while your base is so happy about you pissing off their "enemies" that they turn out for you, you've won the election.

The GOP has used this strategy quite successfully (it's the root of the Southern Strategy). Meanwhile the Dems. try so hard to please everyone, they end up pleasing no-one.

Posted by DAS | August 13, 2007 10:01 AM

I'm with Matt.

Same sex marriage should not be a top national priority for presidential candidates and I support deemphasizing the issue. But I don't see how taking evasive, mealy-mouthed, half-way-down-my-journey, its-all-semantics positions against same sex marriage and for civil unions achieves this goal. It seems to me that it just makes them seem shifty and leads people to believe they really support same sex marriage even if they don't say so and they'll go about it in a sneaky way. In fact, I haven't seen a poll like this, but if you polled Americans on whether the Democrats or any given Democratic presidential candidate is pro same sex marriage, I'd be willing to be that a sizeable percentage actually believe Clinton, Obama and Edwards are pro-SSM regardless.

I think the issue may be better defused if leading Democrats would just making the much simpler case for same sex marriage, while emphasizing respect for differences of opinions and ensuring the right of religions to make their own rules. I know New York State is not necessarily like the country as a whole, but Eliot Spitzer's unabashed support for equal marriage rights was an absolute non-issue in his campaign for governor.

And Republicans are going to slam Democrats with the same vigor for being gay and gay-friendly no matter what real-life policies they promote.

Posted by Joseph Hovsep | August 13, 2007 10:04 AM

Lawyers owned the plantations? You learn something new every day. - Ginger Yellow

I suspect Chris Ford views the plantations as one of those wonderful things the lawyer elites strangled. I bet he feels he should have the liberty to be a plantation owner, and blames the Jew ... err "lawyers" for taking that liberty away from him.

Of course, people like Chris Ford (and there are many who think this way, albeit on a more subconscious level and who are certainly not anti-Semitic or racist about it, but just have a general longing for the liberties possessed by the landed elite in the past) forget that if, a la Rawls' proposed thought experiment to define whether an action is just, they were suddenly rematerialized in that past, they'd be more likely to be serfs than barons.

Posted by DAS | August 13, 2007 10:17 AM

Forget to add the footnote to my comment at August 13, 2007 10:01 AM

(*)

I experienced "thinking in stock phrases" first hand: the news editor when I was writing an opinion column for my college's paper (I wrote a news piece in order to try and get a paid position at the paper) insisted that the event I covered must have been the "first annual [X]", because any event, unless it was explicitly stated otherwise, was annual.

Posted by DAS | August 13, 2007 12:05 PM

Saying, "no" to gay marriage but "yes" to civil unions sends a message about the level of intensity in the candidate's commitment to the issue. So if I'm John Doe who really can't stand the idea of gay marriage, but otherwise like most of what I hear from, say, Clinton, I'm OK with voting for her, because I don't think she will force the issue. There is no mystery to this. The hardcore "Pro-life" candidates always say they do not support any exceptions for rape or incest, urging adoption in even those cases. Soft "Pro-life" candidates often emphasize that they would make exceptions for rape and incest, even though it undercuts the theory that abortion is equal to murder, in large part because these candidates know that by including the caveats, pro-choice voters will take that as a signal that they are not going to be pro-life activists and may even back-burner the pro-life issues. It's not pretty, but nonprincipled positions often have a secondary meaning that the espouser of the principle will not expend inordinate amounts of capital on the position.

Posted by Leon Russell | August 13, 2007 7:37 PM

Leon came fairly close to my understanding, but we're not quite on the same page, so let my try to articulate my reason why politicians go "pro-civil-union" even though it doesn't fool anyone.

There are a lot of folk who have intellectually bought into gay rights, but still feel icky about it. They can't see any arguments against gay marriage, but it still seems sort of funny to them. They may know some gay folk, and think that most of them are pretty "normal." They don't want to be thought of as bigoted, and they know that homophobes are bigots. But they are still uncomfortable with changing times, and fluid gender roles. They can't help it; everybody gets a bit rigid with age.

They are willing to go along with gay rights, if they are not pushed too hard. But they want some feeling of control over the process. Hence, the aversion to courts. Hence, civil unions. It is a way that the Democrats have of telling these voters that times will change, but not too quickly.

Yeah, I know that "all deliberate speed" does not sound very pleasant to folk who want justice, now. But it works pretty well. The civil rights revolution didn't start in 1954, with Brown v. Board. Or Jackie Robinson, or the desegregation of the military. It started in 1915, with Birth of a Nation, or maybe a bit before, with the antilynching and antipeonage movements. The gay rights movement is moving a lot more quickly, and (I think) has many fewer barriers.

Posted by Joe S. | August 13, 2007 11:16 PM