Why do we think the Civil Unions strategy will work?

[dsc]

Maybe this notion would have made sense before the 2004 election. But now, it is hard to see this.

First, there is the performance of the various anti same sex marriage amendments. They did the same regardless of whether they banned civil unions or didn't. Both Ohio and Michigan passed amendments which banned not only same sex marriage but civil unions as well.

Second, we have the case of Connecticut and Michigan. In both cases religious fundamentalists of all stripes have banded together to fight not same sex marriage but in Michigan health care benefits and in Connecticut civil unions.

The simple fact is that the opponents of this are not just opponents of same sex marriage. They also oppose civil unions. They aren't going to quietly slip away if we get the rights without the name.

On the other side, there are some on my side of the issue who find it hard to vote and work for candidates who oppose same sex marriage. Bush's percentage of the LGBT vote actually went up in 2004 from 2000.

We need to learn one very valueable lesson from 2004. The base is what matters. They drove their base to the polls and we didn't drive ours. It is as simple as that. We can win elections again if we give our base a reason to show up like Bush gave his. The muddled middle will be swayed by personality or other factors. They clearly don't pay a great deal of attention to the news. They clearly don't make distinctions between same sex marriage and civil unions. But our base does.

[Maat]

1. This PFLAGer believes that our opponents in this War for

equal protection of the law are quite vicious.

[LittleClarkie]

2. Who did the people on your side of the issue work for in the primaries

Curious

[dsc]

6. Many gays worked for Dean

Frankly among the candidates there was only one perfect choice and she was a very long shot. Kucinich had supported DOMA as a Congressional candidate, Sharpton had said negative things about gays in the past, and the other candidates, aside from Mosley Braun didn't support same sex marriage.

I was one of those who worked for Dean. While not perfect, he was the only candidate who had actually put his career on the line for us. Had only a couple of thousand Vermonters voted differently in 2000, he would have been voted out of office by the Vermont House (in Vermont, the governor has to win a majority and he got 50.3% of the vote). His courage made civil unions possible. It wasn't a sufficient ingredient but it was a necessary one. I would have preferred him to support same sex marriage. But, I also thought that civil unions might be enough of a soft pedal to save the issue for us. That turned out to have been wrong.

I have no candidate yet in 2008, but I will be looking for one who learned from 2004.

[LittleClarkie]

13. !!!

Dennis did WHAT?!

I woulda bet that y'all were Kucitizens.

That wasn't the only issue that he switched on, is it? What was the other issue? Dang, my memory sucks. Was it abortion?

I know some people who hadn't voted since Nixon who voted for Dennis because he was the most honest.

Are you telling me that's not necessarily so?

[dsc]

17. He was a typical Catholic democratic politician

great on economics not so great on social issues. He did change though. There were quite a few LGBT voters who did support Kucinich. For one thing, the fact this was a new position was pretty much ignored by both the LGBT media and the major media. Thus, only people who watched him campaign for his seat in Congress actually knew that he had changed his position on that issue. His abortion change got way more press. I lived in Ohio until July and worked in Northeast Ohio for Dean. The Cleveland LGBT community was about evenly divided between Dean and Kucinich with pretty much everyone else a distant third. That changed when Dean dropped out after Wisconsin.

[LittleClarkie]

23. Don't suppose he just had a sincere change of heart

Probably a long shot, actually.

Hoo boy.

[dsc]

25. Some think that some didn't

I honestly didn't know what to think. Let him run a couple of elections in his district with his new found convictions and see what he does. Then I will take a new look.

[AP]

3. I think any state law that says the state or federal government couldn't

(respectively) give all the state or federal rights (eg, re inheritance or taxes) to same sex couples that they give oppostite sex couples would be unconstitutional.

States can set a lower floor for civil rights but that can't set a lower ceiling. They can give more rights than the constitution allows, but they can't give less.

If the state statutes do do this, then it would be fucking fantastic to challenge them and get them deemed unconsititutional.

Which is one more fantastic reason to frame gay marriage as an issue about granting legal rights rather than granting spiritual rights (ie, "marriage" rights).

Have you read The Twilight of Equality yet?

[AP]

4. By the way, we did get our base to the polls. It was the middle that went

R.

Didn't you read the Pew poll today? Educated moderates and diasaffected working class people (respectively) voted heavily R and didn't vote, and those who voted from both groups were motivated by fear -- they voted on the Osama/missing bombs issue. And this was despite the fact that both of those groups have people who could be motivated to vote Dem on issues like having a government that takes care of the poor (an issue which the Dems didn't reach out on effectively).

[dsc]

8. I didn't read the report

but I did hear a report on NPR and according to it those people voted for Bush due to liking him.

[AP]

10. Same report. And the ABB folks should rethink their strategy given

that bit of info. Attacking Bush personally convinced a lot of people in the swing groups to vote for Bush because they liked him.

Great.

[AP]

15. Are you going to answer the question in post 3?

[dsc]

19. Not yet

I intend to do so when school is out. I have 7 days and exams left. Not that I am counting or anything.

[AP]

22. I think you should put reading that book ahead of posting on this issue

at DU.

If you don't have the time to read the book, you shouldn't be posting. And you really shouldn't be posting on this issue until you read one of the best progressive analyses of this issue available.

[dsc]

24. I like to read serious books at a relaxed pace

I also live in a town with a lousy bookstore so I have to drive to get it. I will get around to it. One nice thing about teaching is that we get nice summers.

[AP]

26. I told you about this book months ago. It's short. And it's on Amazon.

[dsc]

27. I am teaching a brand new course without a book

In addition I have a repeater algebra 1A class (all the lowest performing freshman in the school in a class they already failed once). Trust me on this, I have read pretty much nothing over the last semester that isn't related to advanced functions and modeling. The last political book I read was Dean's book which I got in November or something like that. I know it sounds lame but given the amount of research I have had to do for my class, I just don't have the desire to read anything of any length. I am going to order the book this week with my Borders gift card, (a Christmas gift which I haven't used yet). So that I can read it when I get the free time I am so close to having.

[sonicx]

30. the 2004 exit polls said Kerry won moderates and independents.

According to the exit polls, a higher percentage of Republicans voted last year than at least the last 2 elections.

[AP]

5. One mor thing: I remeber a poll in 2003 that said that when

people were asked if they believed same sex couples should be able to pass their estates tax free, have rights to see their partner in the hospital, and have the same burdens and benefits of partenthood (including having to provide child support after separation in appropriate circumstances) something like 66% of those surveyed said yes. When asked if they should be able to marry, the numbers were the inverse.

So I'm going to have to dispute your assumptions their, dsc. I think the public (and especially an informed public) would go for civil unions in a hear beat.

[dsc]

7. then why was there no discernable difference

in the percentages of people voting for amendments banning same sex marriage and ones which banned both that and civil unions? I know what the polls say, but I also see what the voters did.

[AP]

9. You're comparing what? Vote totals in two different states?

Without any reference to how the measures were argued to the public and without an comparision within the state?

The poll that I saw is something that we should all intuit -- if the issue is framed and fought properly, there's massive support for, when thinking of "marriage" as a set of rights, giving everyone equal rights, but when you think of it as a spiritual issue, then religion gets mixed up in people's perceptions and they think god's against it so I am too.

[dsc]

12. It isn't just that

though it should be noted that a less strict version of the amendment only got 4% more in Georgia than the very strict one did in Ohio. But, I find it very hard to believe that more than 61% of Ohioans oppose gay marriage. That is the number which voted for the strict version of the amendment. This was despite the fact that the AARP of Ohio and domestic violence groups both opposed it due to the fact that it went so far. In Ohio we no longer have laws against domestic violence in anything but marriage.

[AP]

14. "strict", "less strict"? What does that mean?

The poll I saw said that people were inclined to be overwhelmingly OK with granting equal rights, but not with allowing "gay marriage" (without defining what it was).

The point is, when you define the rights given without reference to the (spiritual) term 'marriage', people will go for it.

How does "strictness" illuminate whether that's the case.

Obviously, if people perceive a "civil unions" bill as a right to get married, they're going to object to it.

What we're talking about is framing, and I'd rather frame the idea of civil unions than the idea that the government is trying to give the stamp of approval for the spiritual relationship of "marriage" for same sex couples.

[dsc]

18. Ohio not only banned marriage

but any marriage like benefits, even from private companies, for unmaried couples. Thus domestic violence laws, a 'benefit' of marriage, no longer apply to unmarried couples.

[AP]

20. I think fujiyama answered this issue pretty succinctly.

I dont' think that tells us that framing the issue as one of the government confering "rights" rather than giving a stamp of approval for a spiritual relationship is clearly the way to go, and has a much higher chance of success which we should all realize just anecdotally.

Go arround to the most homophobic people you know and ask them if they think you and a same sex partner should have a bunch of irrational legal hurdles that make it harder for you to operate on a level playing field viz your employer (with rights in the workplace) and the goverment (viz tax law) and I think a majority them right of the bat will say if it's a rights issue, they're OK with extending the rights, and I bet a lot of the ones who say no could still be convinced to say yes.

[fujiyama]

11. I think the main reason

many voted for the bans was that they were marketed as banning gay marriage.

While I believe that most wouldn't MIND civil unions, many are more scared of gay marriage - and would rather give gays and lesbians no benefits at all, rather than even risk having gay marriage legal.

What they are scared of, I have no clue, but the RR was very successful in marketing these as gay marriage bans.

It's amazing how many traditional democratic voters are also very homophobic. For example, in MI a state that did go blue, the ban did pass. I'm not sure of the percentage, but I recall that night the ban was winning overwhelmingly and only after Washtenaw county (home of UM-Ann Arbor) was processed, did it look more modest. Even in Wayne County (where Detroit is located - a city that voted 89%+ for Kerry), the ban did well. While Bush's gains among African Americans were minimal (maybe 2% at most), the gains may be attributed to this same homophibia and the fear of gay marriage.

[liberalpragmatist]

16. Probably b/c it was campaigned against as "gay marriage"

not an anti-civil unions bill (even though it was both).

For the record I'm in favor of gay marriage - strongly.

However, I do think if we trumpet gay marriage before guaranteeing other rights we are going to lose. Civil unions make sense to me as a stop-gap, and once people see that there's nothing to get alarmed about, it can be easily retermed "marriage". And I do think that had Kerry or any Democratic candidate come out in favor or same-sex marriage, their vote total would have been even worse.

That being said, it might be worth trying politically, at least on a state-level. I don't know if the issue is one that will have much sway among most voters. I'm willing to be proven wrong.

[AP]

21. And what if ultimately the right wing says, OK, if you can find a church..

...that will grant the marriage you can have it, but you can't have any of the legal rights?

Would people consider that a victory?

I think it would be a bigger loss, because it would set people even farther back. If you ask for the rights, people will say, "you want more? The right to call yourself "married" wasn't enough? Why don't you just slow down!"

[sonicx]

29. Because they were on the ballot together

Some didn't know it banned civil unions and some didn't care. They just wanted gay marriage gone, even if it meant voting for badly worded ban.

Those who opposed the ban weren't able to stress enough that it banned civil unions.

About 35-40% of the country is against any recognition of gay unions.

[Democat]

28. I think civil unions are a good stance

If Democrats are willing to take a stand, they will look stronger on a potentially controversial issue. Most Americans, at least in the non-extreme states, could be convinced that civil unions are acceptable.

Democrats need to stand up strong once they decide what their position is. The problem we have now is that Democrats don't seem to have a unified position and Republicans do.

We can't win if we don't know what we're fighting for.

[bvar22]

31. The ONLY WINNING Strategy:

There IS no Gay Marriage issue.

The ONLY Democratic response should be:

The Democratic Party supports the Constitution of the United States, Civil Rights for EVERYONE , and EQUAL PROTECTION under the law for EVERYONE!

The other Party seems to believe that some are more equal than others. If you haven't read Animal Farm, please read it NOW!

If asked about marriage (gay or otherwise) the ONLY Democratic response should be that Marriage is a religious issue and should be settled by the various churches, not the government. PERIOD.

No Democrat ever needs to elaborate on this position, hedge their bets, speak frankly or get drawn into discussions of nuance. No Democrat EVER needs to say the words "Gay Rights" or "Gay Marriage". As soon as they speak the words...THEY LOSE!

This is NOT a GAY issue....IT IS a CIVIL RIGHTS and EQUAL PROTECTION issue. PERIOD.

There is NO MIDDLE GROUND, and NO COMPROMISE!!!!