E-Mail This Article to a Friend A sheep in wolf’s clothing? (continued)

This rift between congressional Republicans over the FMA has become ever more apparent as the vote gets closer, says Winnie Stachelberg, political director of the Human Rights Campaign, a Washington, DC–based national gay-advocacy group. As it stands, of the 30 or so senators who remain on the fence, the vast majority are Republican. Moderate Republican senators, such as Maine’s Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, as well as Rhode Island’s Lincoln Chaffee, have grown so cool to the notion of amending the Constitution that they’re expected to stand beside Democrats in blocking the FMA vote. And they’re joined by more-conservative Republicans, like Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and John Sununu of New Hampshire. "Obviously," Stachelberg says, "these divisions could come with a price at the ballot box."

To be sure, many moderate voters are unhappy with the Republicans’ pro-FMA nod to the far right. The Log Cabin Republicans, an 11,000-strong gay GOP organization, has spent thousands of dollars on advertising to speak out against Bush’s anti-gay-marriage crusade. Christopher Barron, the group’s political director, maintains that the FMA has yet to force gays and lesbians out of the Republican Party. But he hastens to add, "Clearly, Bush’s support for the FMA has jeopardized not only the votes from gays and lesbians, but also the votes from our friends and family members."

Back in 2000, some 25 percent of the gay vote — or one million gay men and lesbians — ended up going to Bush. Today, many observers believe that the president has cut that percentage by half with this issue. And just like the Christian-right vote, the gay vote could make a difference in battleground states such as Arizona, New Mexico, Florida, and Nevada, all of which boast significant gay populations. As US Representative Barney Frank (D-Newton), an openly gay congressman and a Kerry adviser, puts it, "The Republicans stand to lose more votes than they gain from this strategy because of the Log Cabinites." This time around, he says, "a large contingent of gays and lesbians who supported Bush will abstain from voting."

Barron says he has yet to decide if he’ll continue to back Bush. But he acknowledges that his mother — "who has pulled a straight party line all her life" — remains furious with the president for promoting a measure that would alienate her son. "I don’t think losing the vote of a conservative woman from rural North Carolina factored into Karl Rove’s plans," Barron says, "but it should have. A lot of conservatives out there care about the one million [Republican] gays and lesbians."

Of course, this internal party conflict may not necessarily cause the GOP to go down to defeat in this year’s presidential election. More likely, it will present problems in the long run. What does have short-term consequences for the GOP is the level of apathy among the undecided voters. By and large, as CNN’s Schneider says, "Most Americans don’t want to have anything to do with this issue during the campaign. They don’t want to have to think about it, talk about it, or hear about it." In every poll asking people to identify the country’s problems — problems they wish the president and Congress would address — gay marriage falls at the end of the list. Instead, most Americans rank the Iraq war, the economy, health care, and the environment as high priorities.

Anders, of the ACLU, says that his organization conducted focus groups on the FMA in battleground states last fall, and found that undecided voters ultimately want the president and Congress to help them improve their day-to-day lives. "This issue does nothing for that," he says. "Voters in swing states wonder why Congress is talking about this at all. Why are they wasting time on this issue?" Because such apathy exists across the board, Anders and many others doubt that the GOP strategy will harm Kerry very much in the states that really matter.

Meanwhile, some swing states, particularly those in the Rocky Mountain region, boast a libertarian streak that may actually boost the Democratic challenger. Robert Sullivan, an associate editor of CommonWealth magazine who has analyzed how regional character may shape the 2004 presidential election, explains that the Rocky Mountain states adhere to a "certain states’-rights ethos different from the South." In the South, this ethos has historically played out in resistance to federally sanctioned civil-rights initiatives. Out West, by contrast, it appears in a live-and-let-live attitude. In other words, Western-libertarian Republicans may not want the government telling them what to do in the bedroom any more than they want the government taking away their guns. "The libertarian attitude is a real wild card," Sullivan notes. He believes the GOP strategy could backfire in swing states such as Arizona, Colorado, Nebraska, Oregon, and Washington. "I don’t think I could say flat-out this is a boon for Kerry, but there is an argument to be made."

ALL IN ALL, the July 12 vote on the FMA could be more of an opportunity than a liability for Kerry. It’s possible the senator won’t show up on Capitol Hill to register his opposition to the FMA, although Frank says he expects Kerry to cast a ballot next week, and to use the chance "to make a very clear distinction between himself and George Bush that Kerry’s the candidate that will allow gays to go forward." (The Kerry campaign did not return two phone calls from the Phoenix seeking comment for this story.) If Kerry really wanted to turn the issue around on Bush, observers say, he could cite Bush’s actions on the FMA as yet another example of how the president divides the electorate.

Explains Schneider, "Kerry has an opportunity to come out looking good. His strongest argument is that Bush is deliberately provoking division in this country on an issue that Americans don’t even want to hear about." After all, he notes, "People really resent that about this president — that he is a divider, not a uniter."

Maybe this sounds like wishful thinking. Just last Friday, however, Kerry took a page straight out of Schneider’s playbook when he delivered a speech at a New York fundraiser attended by prominent leaders in the local gay community, during which he denounced the FMA as another attempt by the president to divide Americans. "The American family I know won’t stand for the politics of fear and distortion," Kerry told the crowd of 350 gays and lesbians. "We won’t stand for those who want to amend our Constitution for political purposes. We won’t stand for those who want to use the most precious document in our history to divide the nation and distract us from our failures."

So maybe Kerry will seize the opportunity and embrace the FMA debate. If he does, one thing seems certain: Rove and his GOP gurus will be less likely to get their way in the 2004 race. And gay marriage won’t become that great sleeper issue.

Kristen Lombardi can be reached at klombardi[a]phx.com