“Santorum Ignores Shift”: What Rick Santorum Views As A Passing Fad Is Likely To Become The Norm Quite Soon
Several 2016 presidential campaigns are already up and running — some more quietly than others — and Republicans hoping to be their party’s nominee are preparing for a primary that could potentially bear little resemblance to those of 2012 and 2008. As the party grapples with a shifting electorate, it is divided over differences on gay marriage, immigration reform, national security policy and even guns — gaps that could only widen by 2015, when campaigns will be in full swing.
Potential candidates are busy searching for safe corners on these contentious issues and are either acknowledging the profound shifts, even when they haven’t changed their minds, or saying little until they have to — all of them, so far, except former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.).
Santorum, of course, won the Iowa caucuses last year and nearly derailed Mitt Romney’s path to the GOP nomination before he started speaking out against the dangers of college education, free prenatal testing and contraception. Just this week he predicted that a “chastened” U.S. Supreme Court would not rule in favor of gay marriage and that the Republican Party was not going to change on the issue because doing so would be the end of the party. Yes, the end.
“The Republican Party’s not going to change on this issue. In my opinion it would be suicidal if it did,” Santorum told The Des Moines Register. The ex-lawmaker described new support for gay marriage as “popular” and “the fancy of the day,” but also considers it fleeting, as “not a well thought-out position by the American public.”
In the past Santorum has made clear he believes gay marriage is “antithetical” to healthy families. “Every society in the history of man has upheld the institution of marriage as a bond between a man and a woman. Why? Because society is based on one thing: that society is based on the future of the society. And that’s what? Children. Monogamous relationships. In every society, the definition of marriage has not ever to my knowledge included homosexuality,” he said in 2003.
Santorum told the Register on Monday he is considering another presidential run but hasn’t made any decisions. He will return to Iowa next week to speak to the Iowa Faith and Freedom Coalition, where he said he will address this topic. “One of the things I learned from the last four years is that when you go to Iowa, people pay attention to what you say,” he said in his interview. “That’s always a gift to any person in public life. We’re going to talk about the concerns I have.”
It is understandable that, as a religious Christian, Santorum is uncomfortable with the idea of same-sex marriage. Many Republicans who also want to be president feel exactly the same way. But they are not encouraging their fellow Republicans to alienate homosexual voters. Telling voters their opinions are wrong isn’t usually a winning campaign strategy. The strong majority support for gay marriage, even among Republicans, can be denied no more than the growth of the Latino population and the fact that President Obama won it 71 percent to 27 percent over Romney. They are stubborn electoral shifts, just like the fact that young voters and Asian Americans have recently turned away from the GOP in greater numbers, which any Republican hoping to win the White House in 2016 will have to contend with and accept.
There is a significant difference between a trend and an evolution. What Santorum views as a passing fad is likely to become the norm quite soon; young people support gay marriage by a margin of 4 to 1. More acceptance isn’t likely to give way to less over time, no matter how much chastening Santorum has in mind.
By: A. B. Stoddard, Associate Editor, The Hill, April 10, 2013
“Old Testament Heretics”: Priebus And Republicans Will Continue To Base Social Policies On The Wishes Of The Religious Right
Republican National Chairman Reince Priebus sat down with USA Today around the same time marriage equality was being discussed at the U.S. Supreme Court, and the paper reported that the GOP’s “absolute opposition to same-sex marriage” is unchanged, though Priebus intends to “welcome” those who disagree.
“We do have a platform, and we adhere to that platform,” Priebus said in an interview Monday on USA TODAY’s Capital Download video series. “But it doesn’t mean that we divide and subtract people from our party” who support the right of gay men and lesbians to marry.
“I don’t believe we need to act like Old Testament heretics,” he said, saying Republicans “have to strike a balance between principle and grace and respect.”
I’m not sure Priebus is using “heretic” correctly. Was he trying to say Republicans don’t have to act like Old Testament absolutists? Purists? Literalists?
In any case, I find the RNC chairman’s larger point fascinating. On the one hand, Priebus is saying that Republicans will continue to demand that millions of Americans be denied equal marriage rights and be treated like second-class citizens. On the other, Priebus is also saying Americans who disagree should vote Republican anyway. Why? Because his party will treat LGBT Americans with “respect” while treating them like second-class citizens.
Republicans, in other words, will continue to base their social policies on the wishes of the religious right movement, but Priebus would prefer that voters not think of them that way — as if parties have a choice in dictating how they’re perceived by the public.
As for the bigger picture, the political winds are clearly shifting in a progressive direction when it comes to marriage rights, but at the Republican National Committee, the only apparent change is in tone.
By: Steve Benen, The Maddow Blog, March 27, 2013
“Next Year’s SCOTUS Sensation?”: Irresponsible And Blatantly Unconstitutional Abortion Restrictions
As commentators begin to run out of words to speculate about the murky maneuverings of the Supreme Court on same-sex marriage issues as reflected in oral arguments, it’s occurring to some to compare and contrast the trajectories of law and public opinion on gay marriage and that other hardy perennial of the Culture Wars, abortion.
At Wonkblog, Sarah Kliff sums up the anomaly:
Tuesday marked for a watershed day for gay rights activists as the Supreme Court heard oral arguments on a case with the potential to legalize same-sex marriage across the country.
Across the country and 1,500 miles west of Washington, an equally notable event took place: North Dakota enacted the country’s most restrictive abortion law, barring all procedures after six weeks.
For decades, support (or opposition) for gay marriage and abortion went hand in hand. They were the line-in-the-sand “values” issues that sharply divided the political parties.
Not anymore. ”As recently as 2004, we talked about abortion and same sex marriage in the same breath,” says Daniel Cox, research director at the Public Religion Research Institute. “They were the values issues. Now, it doesn’t make sense to lump them together anymore. We’ve seen a decoupling.”
Actually, I beg to differ in part: abortion policy is, more than ever, a reliable and quasi-universal item that divides the two major political parties.
What’s different is that there’s no clear generational trend on abortion that makes the conservative and Republican position doomed, as Kliff notes:
Younger Americans have become increasingly supportive of gay marriage in a way that hasn’t necessarily happened for abortion rights. Young Americans’ views on same-sex unions look nothing like previous generations. But when it comes to abortion rights, Millennials look a lot more lilke their parents.
Millennials, PRRI has found, have similar views to the general population on the morality and legality of abortion. Fifty-two percent of the general public thinks abortion is “morally wrong.” Among Millennials, that number stands at 50 percent. Fifty-six percent of all Americans think abortion ought to be legal, compared to 60 percent of the younger crowd.
In terms of state activity, the irony is that a development adverse to the anti-choicers–President Obama’s re-election–is partially responsible for the wild competition Republican legislators around the country have been undertaking to enact the most irresponsible and–under existing precedents–blatantly unconstitutional abortion restrictions. Now that they’ve been denied a Romney presidency where Supreme Court appointments would be carried out under a strict anti-choice litmus test, abortion-rights foes have clearly decided to initiate a challenge that will test the commitment to Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey of the existing Court–and particularly its erratic “swing vote,” Justice Kennedy, who opened the door to new abortion restrictions in his bizarre opinion in a 2007 decision upholding a federal ban on so-called “partial-birth-abortion.”
When North Dakota’s Gov. Jack Dalrymple signed that batch of radical bills on abortion yesterday, he might as well have been holding up a big sign reading: “Hey, Anthony Kennedy! These bills are for you!” So I wouldn’t be surprised if abortion is the big issue in oral arguments before the Supremes next year or the year after that.
By: Ed Kilgore, Contributing Writer, Washington Monthly Political Animal, March 27, 2013
“Brilliant”: Joe Biden’s Gay Marriage Comment Was No Gaffe
From the press drubbing of White House press secretary Jay Carney this week, you’d think that the Obama administration had made some sort of huge faux pas, had displayed some devastating lack of discipline that exposed a divergence of opinion at the top and an inability to control it.
Please.
Here’s what happened: Vice President Joe Biden went on TV on Sunday and said he was “absolutely comfortable” with gay marriage. This is a notable, but not all that interesting, difference of opinion from that of President Obama, who has backed the idea of civil unions but has balked at the idea of full-on gay marriage. Shock! Score! Big story!
It would be easy to believe that Biden, who (unfortunately but also endearingly) tends to say what’s in his head at the moment without first screening it for public consumption, had made a mistake by revealing his personal feelings on the matter. It’s why Biden is referred to, by people who don’t know him, as “gaffe-prone.” It’s why reporters who covered him as a U.S. senator always found him refreshing and frank and real (even if he did, on occasion, say he just had three seconds to talk and then 15 minutes later, you were kindly explaining you had a deadline and had to go). And it’s also why people could believe the highly improbable theory that Biden screwed up, said something that contradicted the president, and forced Carney to try to clean it up.
Again—please.
Obama’s well-positioned for re-election, but that means rallying a lot of supporters who really liked the idea of a transformational candidate in 2008, and now aren’t so sure much has been transformed. Mitt Romney will surely have to do better than saying, “I’m not that guy,” to win the White House. But Obama can’t get his base to the polls by saying, yeah, I know I didn’t do everything I promised or hoped, but think how much worse it would be if you elected the other guy. He needs to get the base to the polls.
Gays and lesbians are part of that equation. They’re not a huge part of the equation, but in a race where battleground states could be decided by a couple of percentage points, Obama can’t risk losing them. And yet, he can’t freak out the independents who might not be so comfortable with gay marriage. And perhaps even more, he can’t so anger evangelicals (who are unhappy with Romney and might stay home) that they actually enthusiastically go out and vote for Romney.
What to do, what to do.
Well you could have your vice president saying he’s OK with gay marriage (becoming the highest-ranking U.S. official ever to make such a statement), making gay and lesbian activists (and their straight supporters) happy. Then, you could have the White House officially saying Obama’s opinion on the matter is still “evolving,” appeasing independents and yet giving gay activists hope that Obama might “evolve” toward the direction of his veep. And you could also give a little comfort to those who like to believe that Obama picks people who are true advisers, and not just sycophants.
And just to be sure, your Department of Education secretary, Arne Duncan, by happenstance mentions on a national broadcast that he, too, supports gay marriage. Look at those high-ranking Obama administration officials, coming out for gay marriage! And look at the president, not just giving in to people he outranks!
The “mixed message” the White House issued on gay and lesbian rights wasn’t a mistake. It was brilliant.
By: Susan Milligan, Washington Whispers, U. S. News and World Report, May 8, 2012
“The Bigots Win”: North Carolina Passes Constitutional Amendment Bannig Marriage Equality
Sadly, as predicted, voters in North Carolina passed Amendment One, the law that bans already-banned same-sex marriage and tacks on a gratuitous “and no civil unions, either.” As Joan McCarter explained:
There would be no more legal unions between unmarried people, gay or straight. It could take health care benefits away from families, it could take away domestic violence protections, hospital visitation rights, and all the very basic protections of civil unions.
That’s why just about everyone—including North Carolina Gov. Bev Perdue, former President Bill Clinton (and his daughter), Episcopal bishops, hundreds of business leaders, religious leaders, and members of both parties—opposed it. Because it’s hateful and wrong. But apparently, the state’s voters disagreed.
Way to go, North Carolina. You must be so proud.
By: Kaili Joy Gray, Daily Kos, May 8, 2012
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