Gay Marriage and Conservatives
National Journal continues to ask leading bloggers on a weekly basis what they think about certain issues. The subject this week? Gay marriage. The fascinating and somewhat surprising conclusion: conservatives are extremely divided over the issue:
1. 29.4% say their party should “support it” (examples: Jon Henke of The Next Right and James Joyner of Outside the Beltway)
2. Another 29.4% holds the opposite view
3. And I fall into this category myself (as you can see at National Journal I voted for this option), a staggering 41.2% say their party should avoid the issue altogether.
The poll is definite proof that the “conservatives are anti-gay (marriage)”-meme is out of touch with reality; a creation of the far left. Sure, there are conservatives who oppose gay marriage, but even in the ideological conservative blogosphere, they represent a minority. The real range of conservative opinion is much more diverse than you would be led to believe by virtually any left-leaning reporter.
That does not prevent the left from portraying all conservatives as hateful and bigoted, of course, but it does show they are simply wrong or lying when they do so.
Sadly, it are not just liberal bloggers who repeat the same lie over and over again, the MSM does so as well. Whenever we see a conservative talk about gay marriage on television, he is opposed to it, often if not always based on his religious views. The poll shows, however, that most conservatives have no problem with it or, at least, are not focusing on it as a major issue. The majority say they either believe their party should not make a major issue of it one way or another, and let individual states take care of the matter, or believe the party should support it.
Why? Why is this myth repeated time and again? Simple: because it is such a great stick to beat conservatives with. The left is determined to convince voters that conservatives are bigots. They do not care whether they truly are – it’s all politics. Tarring all conservatives as bigots allows the lazier members of the liberal media and blogosphere to just skip over having to actually respond to conservative arguments on other issues.
Lastly, here are some quotes from some of the bloggers who believe their party should avoid the issue:
“The long-term trend is clearly in favor. Fair-minded supporters should ensure that gay marriage laws include strong protections for the rights of people who do not believe in gay marriage — such as merchants or professionals who do not want to provide services to gay weddings because it would violate their conscience. Likewise, the U.S. should avoid the path of Europe and Canada, where speech critical of gay marriage can be prosecuted as illegal ‘hate speech.’” David Kopel, The Volokh Conspiracy
“It should leave the issue up to the states and be consistent in view with (legitimate) 14th Amendment equal protection concerns.” D.S. Hube, The Colossus Of Rhodey
“Marriage is something between two individuals and their God. This means between them and their church, mosque, synagogue. Not between them and the state. Religious institutions should decide whether they’ll accept gay marriage or not. If they do, gays can marry. If they don’t, they can’t.” Michael van der Galien, PoliGazette
Be sure to go to National Journal and read the results yourself. They’re extremely interesting, I believe, and not just on this particular issue. We were also asked what we thought of immigration – a smart move for Obama to tackle the problems this year? – and you’ll see that, once again, conservatives are quite divided. It might also be worthwhile to challenge some of the liberal bloggers to explain why they ignore this story when they eagerly report every other story about conservatives and gay marriage.
It’s interesting that liberal bloggers are not divided at all. They all toe the line. Can we finally throw the myth that conservatives are less tolerant to dissenting opinions than liberals in the dustbin as well?
Not bad: two myths exposed by one poll. Thank you National Journal.
“It’s interesting that liberal bloggers are not divided at all. They all toe the line. Can we finally throw the myth that conservatives are less tolerant to dissenting opinions than liberals in the dustbin as well?”
Well, I think on this issue it might be arguable that toeing the line is a sign of rationalism and being ahead of the curve John Q represents. I mean, those on the right who want to just avoid the question seem to be convinced that opposition is either wrong or, in the long run, a fool’s game due to changing public perspective. Or did I misread anything?
“Simple: because it is such a great stick to beat liberals with. The right is determined to convince voters that liberals are government-loving bullies. They do not care whether they truly are – it’s all politics.”
NB: I’m not saying that left-wingers are allowed to spread lies or generalizations about right-wingers just because vice versa may have happened, but I just thought that statement was a bit too general, and I thought to turn it on its head.
The GoP would do well to solve this issue and gain millions of democrats in one fell swoop.
They are states righters. They should simply say its none of the Federal governments bidness and defer to the States.
game over man. Game over.
You actually believe this “toeing the line is a sign of rationalism”
wow
Garland;
The view must be wonderful from the moral high ground.
Seriously the GOP should just turn this over to the states and let it become a state issue. IT IS NOT the Federal governments responsibility to nanny state us to death with social issues. That should be an issue taken up by each state.
Period. This would allow the states to have this impetus put upon them and none of this….no federal aid if you dont pass gay marriage.
Our government has run so far amuck that its ridiculous. I do not advocate the Government regress as much as Ron Paul but I think we have allowed the Feds to nanny state themselves to the point they are trying to tell us who to marry and what we can do in our bedrooms.
Wrong. The GOP would do well to regress to the point of stopping this incessant desire to nanny state us the way the democrats want too. I totally agree with the people on my idealogical left who say the GOP are nanny staters too.
listen up GOP…..stop it. Return to being states rights, fiscally conservative people who have compassion and are willing to have those social safety nets in place but are not intrusive nanny staters. Let the individual states do what they want ala the 10th amendment.
“Garland;
The view must be wonderful from the moral high ground.”
When it comes to my attitude to gay people and their rights, the view is pretty nice. I’m on the same level as my opponents, I just saw a much nicer world, and more and more people are waking up to it.
Conservatives who DO oppose gay marriage have put their views into law in 43 states. So it is hardly hysteria on the liberals’ part to feel threatened. Your smugness is misplaced: the tragedy (yet again) is that American conservatives allow their right-wing extremists to prevail. It hurts conservativism; it hurts the country.
Conservatives who DO oppose gay marriage have put their views into law in 43 states. So it is hardly hysteria on the liberals’ part to feel threatened.
And they did so using the DEMOCRATIC process. It is the noisy activism of those pushing the issue into the courts that has motivated the 30 or so state constitutional amendments. Many of those states were heading towards or had already codified gay marriage in all but the label of “marriage” before the public backlash set them back from statutory labelling quibbles to enshrined constituional barriers. The SINGLE democratic-process victory for same-sex marriage came in Vermont this year.
When to a large extent you CREATE the problem that you’re getting hysterical about, my sympathy lessens enormously. Many or most of those state DOMAs would never have made the ballot without that shrill activism.
That does not prevent the left from portraying all conservatives as hateful and bigoted, of course, but it does show they are simply wrong or lying when they do so.
Of course. The dogmatic left simply cannot accept that anyone who disagrees with any single iota of their doctrine and dogma is not a homophobic racist sexist Nazi Klansman. To judge from their rhetoric, anyway. We’ve already seen the backlash from that on the same-sex marriage issue. nyone want to place bets on where the next backlash will hit?
“It is the noisy activism of those pushing the issue into the courts that has motivated the 30 or so state constitutional amendments.”
“Noisiness” while “pushing” to end discrimination is not up for criticism. It might not be the wisest approach, but it isn’t grounds for calling them unfair or undemocratic. People shouldn’t be allowed to use democracy to discriminate their landsmen.
“To judge from their rhetoric, anyway. We’ve already seen the backlash from that on the same-sex marriage issue. nyone want to place bets on where the next backlash will hit?”
Sure, it is a problem. Many left-wingers should be criticized for trying to make political clout out of an issue, thus co-opting an issue while harming it.
But there is a solution here as well – make backlash impossible by not offering people the alternative to vote to discriminate others. That’s not something you should expect as a democratic right.
I’m having a problem posting so this may be a duplicate comment. If it is, my apologies.
The MSM does the same thing with torture. While I believe the majority of Republicans are against torture, the media usually only show those Republicans who favor it. This exclusion of other voices then reinforces the stereotype the media wants in order to create controversy. But this is not liberal bias by the media because they do the same thing to the left. No, this is just lousy journalism that both Democrats and Republicans need to call out whenever they see it.
“Marriage is something between two individuals and their God. This means between them and their church, mosque, synagogue. Not between them and the state. Religious institutions should decide whether they’ll accept gay marriage or not. If they do, gays can marry. If they don’t, they can’t.” Michael van der Galien
If marriage is something between two individuals and their God, and that means between them and their church, does that mean that Atheists, Agnostics and other non-denominational people can’t get married either because they have no church, mosque, synagogue, or other type of temple devoted to a supernatural being to allow it?
And if the state has nothing to do with marriage, then shouldn’t you be clamouring to have all of the state-mandated benefits, tax deductions, legal protections, visitation rights, survivor benefits and everything else that flows from the state’s recognition of people’s marriages removed from state law?
Also, as I understand it there are at least a few religious denominations which are more than willing to perform gay wedding ceremonies, but are unable to do so because of state laws forbidding such. Given that, shouldn’t you be advocating that the state stop interfering?
You see, my view on the matter of gay marriage isn’t really any different from your own; let people and religious institutions make their own choice on the matter. Thinking through the implications of such a position, though, means I find that I have to support its legalization, because, to me at least, it is fairly obvious that one cannot make a free choice when one of the options is illegal.