Saturday, Sep 6, 2008
John Kerry has what the National Stonewall Democrats call a "lengthy and strong record of support" for the gay community. For example, he was one of only 14 senators to vote against the anti-gay-marriage Defense of Marriage Act, which Bill Clinton signed into law in 1996. Kerry said at the time: "I believe this debate is fundamentally ugly, and it is fundamentally political, and it is fundamentally flawed."
But the stakes are higher now that Kerry is running for president. And as he has been forced to do on everything from the Iraq war to NAFTA to the PATRIOT Act to "No Child Left Behind," Kerry now espouses a more equivocal, middle-ground view. He opposes gay marriage but supports civil unions. And while he says he'll oppose a federal constitutional amendment banning gay marriage, he is apparently open to a state constitutional amendment that would effectively overturn the pro-gay-marriage decisions of the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court. But so far, Massachusetts lawmakers have been unable to draft an amendment that will garner majority support.
Kerry's nuanced positions could give Bush and Rove just what they need to attack him from both sides at once. The louder Kerry is forced to proclaim his opposition to gay marriage itself, the more he risks losing support from some gay men and lesbians and liberal gay-rights supporters. The more Kerry has to explain why he opposes a federal constitutional amendment "defending marriage," the more he risks losing support from socially conservative swing voters.
Kerry says he is up for the challenge. Immediately after the Massachusetts court ruled, Kerry launched what appeared to be a preemptive strike against any Republican wedge campaign. "I support equal rights, the right of people to have civil unions, to have partner rights," he said. "I do not support marriage." If Republicans "want to turn this into some wedge sort of issue and distort my position, I will fight back very clearly." And on Tuesday, Kerry blasted Bush for "seeking to drive a wedge by toying with the United States Constitution for political purposes" after the president came out for a gay marriage amendment.
Because of his strong record on gay issues, gay activists seem inclined to give Kerry the political room he needs to fight back. They'll likely give him a pass on his opposition to gay marriage, and they may even look the other way if he supports a state constitutional amendment in Massachusetts. But they expect him to remain firm in his opposition to amending the federal Constitution so that other states will keep the freedom to decide the marriage issue for themselves. If he equivocates on that, Kerry could begin to face trouble on the left.
"I think the vast majority of gay people understand that George W. Bush is a very serious threat, and therefore would be inclined to give the Democratic candidate a fair amount of leeway," said a prominent gay-rights activist involved in the marriage issue. "But there's a limit to that. If Kerry comes out in support of the constitutional amendment in any form, he'll lose turnout and he'll lose support."
The greater threat almost certainly comes from the right, and Bush's born-again allies have already begun to exploit it. The Republican machine now links the words "Kerry" and "Massachusetts" in the same way Bush has linked "Saddam Hussein" and "9/11"; say the two together enough, and people start thinking there's some causal link between them.
Never mind that Kerry was born in Colorado, not Massachusetts. Never mind that he has no control over the actions of the Massachusetts Legislature or its courts. Never mind that Massachusetts Chief Justice Margaret Marshall, who wrote the gay marriage decision, was named to her position by a Republican governor who is now Bush's ambassador to Canada. Kerry, in the words of the RNC, is a "Massachusetts liberal" who is "culturally out of step with the rest of America," and the decisions of those liberal activist judges come out of "Kerry's native Massachusetts."
While the Boston bashing may not count for much north of the Mason-Dixon line, the Republicans have also begun attacking Kerry as a waffler on gay marriage -- a charge that may resonate more even with liberal voters who are frustrated by Kerry's evolving views on the Iraq war. "That's the way all the Democrats are," said Focus on the Family's Stanton. "They can't support gay marriage and they can't not support gay marriage, and they're falling all over themselves trying to be consistent."
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In large part, the Democrats can blame the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court for their predicament. When the court first ruled last year that Massachusetts could not deny gay couples the benefits of marriage, it seemed to leave the door open for the Legislature to provide those benefits through some form of marriage-lite, like civil unions. That's the path former Gov. Howard Dean took when he was forced to confront the gay marriage question in Vermont, and it's the position Kerry and many of the other Democratic presidential candidates endorsed: civil unions yes, gay marriage no.
But with its decision this month, the Massachusetts court essentially took away that middle ground. The court ruled that a separate-but-equal civil union category wasn't really equal at all. Massachusetts, the court said, must offer marriage -- and nothing less -- to gay couples just as it does to straight couples.
"For John Kerry, this could not be more disastrous," says Pat Caddell, a Democratic pollster who worked for Jimmy Carter and George McGovern. "I'd want to slit my throat." Caddell says there's only one thing Kerry can do: Go to Boston and lead the Legislature in somehow resisting or reversing the court's decision. "You can't run around and say what a great leader you are and be from Massachusetts but say, 'I don't have the power to do anything about this,'" Caddell said. "He's got to go up there and cause the Legislature to revolt -- tell the court, 'You're not going to do this on a 4-3 decision.'"
Of course, the Kerry campaign rejects Caddell's apocalyptic take on the issue. "John Kerry's position on this issue is crystal clear, and it's the same position as Dick Cheney's," says Kerry spokesman Dag Vega. "He opposes gay marriage."
Cheney, whose daughter Mary is gay, said during the 2000 campaign that Americans should do "everything we can to tolerate and accommodate whatever kinds of relationships people want to enter into," and that it should be up to individual states to decide what sort of legal rights should be accorded gay couples. He says now that he will support whatever position Bush takes on the issue.
Some Democrats hope that Cheney's earlier public position on gay marriage will keep Bush from pushing too hard on the issue this year. "If Dick Cheney were to switch his position on this ... then there's the question of, 'Where's Cheney?' and Mary Cheney comes into the equation, and it's a big messy situation for them," says Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass. Already there's a letter-writing campaign aiming to get Mary Cheney to come out against any constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
Frank, who spoke with Salon before Bush endorsed a constitutional amendment, said he believes that the gay marriage issue is a much tougher one for Republicans than it is for Democrats. Democrats can say that they're against gay marriage themselves -- as Kerry has done -- but that they don't think it's necessary or even appropriate to amend the Constitution over the issue, and that they don't believe the legislature in one state should presume to decide the issue for other states.
But will that kind of parsing really play in 30-second campaign commercials? Won't the Republicans be able to portray a Democrat's opposition to the constitutional amendment as support for gay rights more generally? Won't Republicans be able to blur the lines between gay marriage and civil unions and put the Democrats on the defensive? Frank said he doesn't think so, and he went off on a rant when a reporter suggested otherwise.
"How does a Democrat get put on the defensive?" Frank asked, his voice climbing with anger. Imagine a Democrat is accused of supporting gay marriage, Frank says. The Democrat can simply respond by saying: "'I am not for gay marriage. If it came up in Michigan, I would vote against it. I am not for gay marriage. And not only that, I don't care what any other state does, I will fight for the right of our state to make our own decision. And I'm against gay marriage.' You tell me how you put me on the defensive."
Frank's protestations notwithstanding, he clearly has some sensitivity to the politics of the issue: Frank reportedly urged San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom not to begin granting marriage licenses to same-sex couples, and he has subsequently criticized Newsom's "symbolic" move.
But Frank is not alone among Democrats in thinking that the marriage issue ultimately won't resonate with voters more worried about unemployment and the war in Iraq. While polls show that Americans oppose gay marriage by a margin of nearly 2-to-1, the issue isn't at the top of voters' lists. Earlier this month, a Gallup poll asked respondents to rank 14 issues in terms of how important they would be in influencing their vote for president. Gay marriage wound up last on the list.
The right -- especially the religious right -- is going to try to change that. "We're going to keep the issue before the people and make sure that all of the right questions are being asked," said Stanton, the Focus on the Family spokesman. "We're continually pushing to make sure that marriage is protected, and we're flushing out those who don't protect it and celebrating those who do."
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