Back in 2004, after Massachusetts had legalized marriage for gay couples, Republicans decided to make it a central campaign issue in the presidential election. In 2004, a clear majority of nearly 60% of Americans opposed marriage for gays and lesbians. Even then, 60% of Americans said that it should play no part in the presidential election.
The conservatives campaigned against gays for months leading up to the election. They used every conceivable terrible attack on us they could think of. They compared our marriages to a marriage with a box turtle and our sex to sex with a dog. There's no definitive proof that gay issues actually galvanized Americans in 2004, despite the conventional wisdom - and especially given the polls telling us that it shouldn't be an issue. It's more likely that the electorate was more Republican, and since they voted for Bush as president, they went ahead and just voted for amendments to ban marriage.
It also didn't help that our nominee was not so great at telling us what he believed.
With his home state set to begin marrying same-sex couples on Monday, Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.) reiterated his opposition to the idea yesterday, even as he met with gay and lesbian groups to shore up their support.
[...]
Yet Kerry has taken several positions on the issue: He voted against the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, which defined marriage as a union only of a man and woman, saying it amounted to gay-bashing. Kerry has opposed President Bush's call for a constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage but said in February that he favors such a ban in Massachusetts.
"If the Massachusetts legislature crafts an appropriate amendment that provides for partnership and civil unions, then I would support it, and it would advance the goal of equal protection," he told the Boston Globe.
He even went on to speak out against marriage shortly after the election.
Whatever the motives, many gay bans were passed. Bush won his first presidential election. Things got very bad very quickly and Republicans used every opportunity to demonize gays.
And then came 2008. More states legalized marriage. None of the Democratic candidates wanted an amendment to ban gays from marrying in their home states, and all of them were reasonably pro-gay on most issues. In fact, candidate Obama and candidate Clinton often sparred on gay issues, each trying to out-gay the other. Clinton supported civil unions. Then Obama supported civil unions, but he wanted to change them to include every right associated with marriage. Clinton supported rethinking DADT, Obama supported completely getting rid of it. Clinton supported repealing part of DOMA, Obama supported repealing all of it. They continued this dance, which was admittedly mostly wordplay, until the primaries were over.
Obama won the primaries, whether it was because of those positions or despite them is irrelevant. Most of the country felt comfortable enough to vote for him when he had explicitly said those things.
And then Prop. 8 happened and that changed everything. Immediately, the gay community was outraged over its passage. Protests were held and covered by the media. The conversation shifted from "Well at least give us civil unions please?" to "Why the fucking hell not let us get married? Hmm?" Opposition to marriage for gays and lesbians became known as "hate" as the No H8 campaign formed.
Now it's 2011 and more than a handful of states have pro-marriage laws, including, of all places, Iowa, right in the center of the country. A plurality of Americans now support marriage and a huge majority supports some type of union for gays and lesbians. Politicians everywhere are being asked "why not marriage?" and the media is following along. The DADT bill which will eventually repeal that law has been passed and signed by the president. Hate crimes legislation has passed.
Now, the administration has decided not to defend DOMA because of its obvious unconstitutionality. And conservatives are freaking out. Already the decision is helping gays. It was mentioned in the Maryland marriage debates. Yesterday Ted Olson and David Boies asked the Ninth Circuit to lift the stay on the injunction against Prop. 8 and let marriages continue, largely based on the president's decision. It's already helping and it's been 24 hours.
And conservatives hate this, so they want to start a war. They are going to make marriage a 2012 campaign issue. All I can say is: please do. Really. Go ahead.
These people already bungled opposition to DADT repeal so badly that it's embarrassing to any sentient being. At the end, McCain was left a crumpled mess on the Senate floor, saying incoherent things about having "no legs, none" and then storming off pouting. Barely a month later, everyone who was in opposition to repeal says the transition will be smooth and painless. I guess no legs will be lost. If they can screw up such an 'easy' conservative issue like the military, I welcome their attempts to reinsert themselves into the marriage debate.
The Washington Post says:
On the federal level, opponents of same-sex marriage urged Republican leaders in the House of Representatives to intervene on their own to defend the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, against pending court challenges.
"The president has thrown down the gauntlet, challenging Congress," said Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council. "It is incumbent upon the Republican leadership to respond by intervening to defend DOMA, or they will become complicit in the president's neglect of duty."
So let me see if I understand this correctly: a known hate group tells the GOP to get involved in the marriage fight, and they are going to. Just like when known hate groups were all over the television opposing the repeal of DADT. The Republican party's plan is to take seriously the ramblings of hate groups and enforce their wishes. Okay. As I said, go right ahead and do that.
In Congress, GOP House leaders gave no immediate indication whether they would intervene to defend DOMA in the ongoing lawsuits, but they harshly criticized Obama's decision.
Of course they did. It's mostly political to them. They even said that his decision is the "real" politicization of the DOJ, referring to Democratic charges in 2004 of Republican politicization of the DOJ when Bush's DOJ wrote "legal" memos changing the laws and reinterpreting the constitution to torture and illegally detain people in prison indefinitely. In other words, it's all a game. This decision by the president and the DOJ is "bad" because Bush's DOJ's got criticized when he was president. These people don't actually care about marriage and gay people and the 'sanctity' of anything.
This is war for the sake of starting a political war. They have a lack of conviction on these issues and we care. We're involved. We're not going away and public opinion is on our side. It will be even more on our side by next year. So, yeah. Let's have a war.