The Gallup polling organization reported in May that “tolerance for gay rights (is) at (a) high-water mark,” with 57 percent of Americans calling homosexuality “an acceptable alternative lifestyle” and only a slim majority opposing same-sex marriage - though other polls have shown a wider gap. “I would say to my Republican friends that they’ll find many more Americans agreeing with them on the marriage issue than they’re likely to find agreeing with them on some of the economic agenda,” Bauer said.ĭemocrats express confidence that the public is moving their way. He said he thinks the Democrats have “overreached” on gay rights. “It has the potential of being as powerful (as in past campaigns), but only if the Republican Party and the Republican nominee are confident enough to make the case,” said Gary Bauer, a former presidential candidate and the president of a group called American Values. Republicans, meanwhile, saw the issue of gay rights fizzle in the 2006 congressional elections, which appeared to hinge on corruption in Washington and the war in Iraq.Īnd the GOP front-runners have not put fighting gay marriage close to the center of their campaigns to succeed President Bush - a subject of some frustration to the right’s anti-same-sex-marriage campaigners. The candidates “competed with each other on the dispatch with which they would try to get rid of ‘don’t ask, don’t tell,’” he said. Trammell was referring to a question posed to the candidates during a June debate in New Hampshire about Bill Clinton’s ban on openly gay people serving in the military. “Probably the strongest indication of it being a big change is the reaction you saw on the ‘don’t ask, don’t tell’ question,” said Jeff Trammell, a lobbyist and gay rights activist in Washington who supports Connecticut Sen. Biden Jr., who cited a scheduling conflict, will attend the Los Angeles debate, whose moderators will include the singer Melissa Etheridge and Washington Post editorial writer Jonathan Capehart. And in a series of televised debates, the candidates have jockeyed to be seen as pro-gay.Īll of the candidates except Delaware Sen. Clinton has - after years of criticism in New York for her stance - repudiated key elements of her husband’s Defense of Marriage Act. The 2004 campaign was also framed by the first same-sex marriages in America, instituted by the mayor of San Francisco and a court in Kerry’s home state of Massachusetts.Īnd so the leading Democratic candidates have spent the early presidential campaign in a newly public competition to show off their pro-gay bona fides.Ĭlinton and Edwards have proudly circulated lists of gay supporters. ![]() And it’s an emboldened view that the electorate is not going to let this field stray away from what really matters to the American people.” “It’s the American people and these candidates being in a more enlightened place on (gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender) issues. “It’s a very different time four years later,” said the president of Human Rights Campaign, Joe Solmonese, whose group also sponsored a debate in 2003 that was attended by all the leading candidates other than then-Sen. There’s a broad cultural shift, indicated by polling, toward public support for gay rights.Īnd the shift comes as Democrats feel confident that Republicans - weakened and tied to an unpopular war in Iraq - will be unable to turn gay rights into the high-profile wedge issue it was in 2004. The Democrats’ apparent newfound confidence on gay issues - a confidence, to be fair, that hasn’t yet been tested by general election pressures - has two sources. “We’ve moved from (candidates saying), ‘All right, I’ve got to handle this issue,’ to (being) a community whose interests are part of a broader fabric of America.” “We’ve moved from being just an issue to being a broader constituency,” said Fred Hochberg, a gay activist and former Clinton appointee who backs Sen. ![]() ![]() Supporters of gay rights see a dramatic shift in their relationship to the party, a move from being a controversial minority courted only in the primary toward being an integral part of the Democratic coalition. They’re expected to reiterate their universal commitments to a broad range of gay rights in areas ranging from health care to immigration - a substantive package that amounts to virtually everything short of the word “marriage.” 9 for a forum sponsored by the gay rights group Human Rights Campaign and broadcast live on the gay cable channel Logo. The party’s leading presidential candidates will gather in Los Angeles on Aug. Kerry backed away from his longtime pro-gay record to support a state amendment banning gay marriage - and in which former President Bill Clinton reportedly urged Kerry to go even further in standing against same-sex marriage.īut the mood among Democrats this election cycle seems closer to liberation.
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