Among the many uncomfortable truths that emerged for establishment Republicans in 2015 was the fact that nearly all of their candidates have denounced same-sex marriage as something akin to “an attack” on religion or, worse yet, a miscarriage of constitutional principles.
Sure, we all expected a parade of derisive insults from the likes of Ted Cruz and Mike Huckabee, but Marco Rubio has been equally as outspoken—the guy who is quickly becoming the establishment’s last great hope as Jeb Bush continues his slow death march into steadily declining single digits.
In fact, Jeb’s dismal outlook along with Donald Trump’s sustained dominance led billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer to place his bets on Rubio in late October, just after Jeb turned in yet another lackluster debate performance. In a letter to his substantial donor circle, Singer hailed Rubio as the only candidate left who could “navigate” the GOP primary and still be “in a position to defeat” Hillary Clinton come the general election.
Singer, a staunch pro-Israel supporter, also touted Rubio’s foreign policy credentials which, although thin, still out-muscle most of his GOP rivals.
What wasn’t mentioned by Singer—who has dropped more than $20 million over the last decade on advancing the freedom to marry—is Rubio’s incongruously retro marriage stance. The youthful senator kicked off this historic year for marriage equality by proclaiming, “I’m against it. I don’t agree with it,” as same-sex marriages commenced in Florida. He’s been nothing but a regressive whiny wretch on the topic ever since.
On the June day when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down same-sex marriage bans nationwide, Rubio asserted that the next president must make it “a priority” to nominate Supreme Court justices who would apply “the Constitution as written and originally understood.”
In November, he told Christian enthusiast David Brody that the Supreme Court court ruling wasn’t “settled law” because it conflicted with “God rules” and “God’s rules always win.”
And just in time for the holidays, Rubio promised that he would, in fact, be the guy to roll back the freedom to marry.
“Any future Supreme Court can change it. And ultimately, I will appoint Supreme Court justices that will interpret the Constitution as originally constructed," Rubio said.
None of this appears to be troubling Singer, whose gay son married his partner in Massachusetts in 2009. In fact, just last month Rubio flat-out denied that he’s heard so much as a peep about it from the very donor who threw him a fundraising lifeline.
Rubio received an enthusiastic response when he met with the Iowa pastors group Nov. 24 and answered questions about his faith and his connections to Singer, the donor known for his support of same-sex marriage.
“When someone cooperates with my campaign, they are buying into my agenda. I am not buying into their agenda,” Rubio said, according to a video recording by the Christian Broadcasting Network. The candidate said he is allied with Singer on national security issues and support for Israel but has never discussed marriage.
Now this is where the rubber meets the road for any donor who wants to advance Freedom For All Americans, per the name of a Singer-backed pro-LGBT group. Singer clearly has competing ambitions—some financial, some foreign policy, some of which we may not know. The question for him and other likeminded conservative donors is, even as they begin pouring more money into advancing LGBT nondiscrimination protections across the country, at what point will they actually prioritize such rights with their candidates? Because, as LGBT author and activist Mike Signorile has pointed out repeatedly, you can’t actively push people like Iowa’s Joni Ernst—who backs a federal ban on same-sex marriage—into office and still say you’re promoting LGBT equality.
Competing goals are nothing new for the donor class, be it progressive or conservative. What pro-LGBT Democratic donors eventually found is that, at some point, you have take a stand—your candidates have to understand that you’ll cut them off at the knees if they profess one thing behind closed doors but say and do another publicly.
That’s what led progressive donors like Tim Gill, Jon Stryker, and Jonathan Lewis to invest tens of thousands of dollars in Fight Back New York, a PAC designed to unseat any New York State senator who had voted against marriage equality in 2009. Eight Democrats went the wrong way on that December vote, and Fight Back New York claimed its first scalp—Queens Democrat Hiram Monserrate—during a special election in March 2010. They eventually toppled two more senators—one a Democrat and one a Republican—before Empire State lawmakers passed a marriage equality bill in 2011.
If Singer and his fellow conservatives want to be taken seriously as pro-LGBT advocates, they will have to make Republican candidates scared to cross them on that issue, and that issue alone. Funding their campaigns regardless of what message candidates broadcast publicly will never accomplish the fear factor necessary to tame the GOP’s longstanding homophobic impulses.
Ultimately, conservative donors will have to make the same evolution that progressive donors did to realize that a candidate’s wink behind closed doors is nothing but a tease. And if they don’t complete that journey, we’ll simply be relegated to waiting for the generational shift to finally deliver equity under the law.