POLITICS OF SSM: Stanley Kurtz

...Swing voters generally oppose gay marriage, yet favor more limited benefits for same-sex couples. The version of the Federal Marriage Amendment the president seems ready to endorse would define marriage as the union of a man and woman, and would ban the judicial imposition of gay marriage. But the version of the FMA likely to be endorsed by the president would also leave decisions on civil unions or more limited partnership benefits to the states. This is exactly the position of most swing voters. And while these voters would much rather avoid amending the federal constitution if at all possible, the continuous conflict set off the Massachusetts decision is slowly but surely going to create a conviction that, in the absence of a federal amendment, gay marriage is sure to be nationalized by the courts. ...

John Kerry, on the other hand, is greatly endangered by the gay-marriage issue. And the problem goes well beyond the powerful association soon to be set up in the public mind between gay marriage, Massachusetts liberalism, activist judges, the Democratic party, and John Kerry.

For starters, John Kerry was one of only 14 senators who voted against the federal Defense of Marriage Act in 1996. Although Senator Kerry now claims to be against gay marriage, he is going to have a very tough time explaining that vote. In effect, a vote against DOMA is a vote to nationalize gay marriage. Kerry refused to take even the most minimal steps to prevent four activist Massachusetts judges from imposing gay marriage on the country. That is going to hurt him.

The deeper problem for Kerry is that the gay-marriage issue could turn into a kind of tipping point on public perceptions of his record. Right now, Kerry's hope is to use his war exploits to neutralize Republican attacks on his extraordinarily liberal voting record. But once gay marriage becomes a major focus of the campaign, Kerry's vote against DOMA is going to become a huge problem. In the contest between the image of Kerry the war hero, and the image of a dovish, tax-loving, Massachusetts liberal, Kerry's DOMA vote is going to push attention back onto his votes. Three big issues on which Kerry's votes are well to the left of the country constitute a trend.

Kerry understands that the gay-marriage issue is a serious problem for him. Noam Scheiber reports that Kerry is at least considering supporting an amendment to the Massachusetts state constitution defining marriage as the union of a man and a woman. Of course, endorsing a state marriage amendment would get Kerry into terrible trouble with his Democratic base -- and permanently mark him out as an unprincipled flip-flopper. How can a man who condemned DOMA as anti-gay turn around and support a state marriage amendment? And if Kerry does support a Massachusetts marriage amendment, it would be very difficult for him to credibly oppose the Federal Marriage Amendment.

more (with one correction here)
posted by Eve at 3:59 AM | link

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home