G.O.P. Moves Fast to
Reignite Issue of Gay Marriage
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Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
President Bush speaking at a luncheon Thursday for
Jeff Lamberti, a Republican candidate for Congress. |
By SHERYL GAY
STOLBERG, NYTimes on the Web, October 28, 2006
WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 — The
divisive debate over gay marriage, which played a prominent role in 2004
campaigns but this year largely faded from view, erupted anew on Thursday as
President Bush and Republicans across the country tried to use a court ruling in
New Jersey to rally dispirited conservatives to the polls.
Wednesday’s ruling, in which the New Jersey Supreme Court decided that gay
couples are entitled to the same legal rights and financial benefits as
heterosexual couples, had immediate ripple effects, especially in Senate races
in some of the eight states where voters are considering constitutional
amendments to ban gay marriage.
President Bush put a spotlight on the issue while campaigning in Iowa, which
does not have a proposal on the ballot. With the Republican House
candidate, Jeff Lamberti, by his side, Mr. Bush — who has not been talking about
gay marriage in recent weeks — took pains to insert a reference into his stump
speech warning that Democrats would raise taxes and make America less safe.
“Yesterday in New Jersey, we had another activist court issue a ruling that
raises doubts about the institution of marriage,” Mr. Bush said at a luncheon at
the Iowa State Fairgrounds that raised $400,000 for Mr. Lamberti.
The president drew applause when he reiterated his long-held stance that
marriage was “a union between a man and a woman,” adding, “I believe it’s a
sacred institution that is critical to the health of our society and the
well-being of families, and it must be defended.”
The ruling in New Jersey left it to the Legislature to decide whether to
legalize gay marriage. Even so, the threat that gay marriage could become
legal energized conservatives at a time when Republican strategists say that
turning out the base could make the difference between winning and losing on
Nov. 7. With many independent analysts predicting Republicans will lose
the House and possibly the Senate, President Bush’s political team is counting
on the party’s sophisticated voter turnout machinery to hold Democratic advances
enough that Republicans can at least maintain control.
“It’s a game of margins,” said Charles Black, a Republican strategist who
consults frequently with Karl Rove, the chief White House political strategist.
“You’ve got about 20 House races and probably half a dozen Senate races that are
either dead even or very, very close. So if it motivates voters in one or
two to go vote, it could make a difference.”
Democrats predicted Thursday that the debate would not dramatically alter the
national conversation in an election that has been dominated by the war in Iraq
and corruption and scandal in Washington. But across the country,
Republicans quickly embraced the New Jersey ruling as a reason for voters to
send them to Capitol Hill.
In Virginia, the court decision could not have come at a better time for Senator
George Allen, a Republican whose campaign for re-election had been thrown off
course by allegations that he had used racially insensitive remarks. The
Virginia ballot includes a proposed constitutional amendment to ban gay
marriage. Mr. Allen supports it; his Democratic opponent, Jim Webb, argues
that the ban is unnecessary.
On Thursday, Mr. Allen could be found in Roanoke at a rally held by backers of a
ballot initiative to ban gay marriage. Victoria Cobb, an organizer of the
events, said the New Jersey ruling was giving the cause “a new momentum.”
“It’s an issue that’s going to play a big role in the next 12 days,” Mr. Allen’s
campaign manager, Dick Wadhams, said in an interview.
In Tennessee, another state with a proposal to ban gay marriage, Representative
Harold E. Ford Jr., a Democrat running for the Senate, was sparring with
Republicans over an advertisement in which the Republican National Committee
asserts that Mr. Ford supports gay marriage — an assertion Mr. Ford says is
wrong. On Thursday, he responded with his own advertisement, calling the
Republican ad “despicable, rotten lies.”
Mr. Ford says he will vote for the Tennessee gay marriage ban. With early
voting under way, the Republican candidate, Bob Corker, is telling voters that
he has already cast his ballot in favor of the gay marriage ban.
And in Pennsylvania, where Senator Rick Santorum, the Senate’s leading
Republican backer of a gay marriage ban, is fighting for his political survival,
conservative advocacy groups were working furiously to revive the gay marriage
debate. Pennsylvania does not have a ballot initiative.
“It’s an important wedge issue to talk about between candidates where there are
two distinct viewpoints on the issue,” said Joseph Cella, president of Fidelis,
a national Catholic advocacy group that has embraced Mr. Santorum for his views
on abortion and gay marriage. Mr. Cella said his organization, which was
also working to pass a gay marriage ban in Colorado, was contemplating an
advertising campaign.
As of January 2006, 45 states had enacted some form of law — from a simple
statute to a constitutional amendment — banning same-sex marriage. In
addition to Virginia, Tennessee and Colorado, the states that have proposed
constitutional amendments on the November ballot include Arizona, Idaho, South
Carolina, South Dakota and Wisconsin.
For conservatives, the debate brings back memories of 2004, when they rallied in
opposition to a Massachusetts court ruling that same sex couples had a right to
marry. The issue proved central in places like South Dakota, where Senator
John Thune, a Republican, railed against activist judges in his successful
campaign to oust Tom Daschle, then the Senate Democratic leader.
This year, by contrast, conservatives have felt frustrated that the debate over
gay marriage and the judiciary is no longer front and center.
“I think they’ve been a little sedate,” Mr. Cella said. But in the wake of the
New Jersey ruling, he said, conservatives “are really getting motivated, and
this is a shot in the arm to propel that.”
Democrats, though, insist they are not concerned.
“It’s not going to be close to the issue it was in 2004,” said Senator Charles
E. Schumer, Democrat of New York. “In 2004 they scared people that the
court ruling in Massachusetts would just change America and families
dramatically. By 2006, it’s clear that hasn’t happened, and so the scare
tactic, what motivated people to go to the polls, just isn’t there.”
One place the New Jersey court ruling is not likely to have much of a political
impact is, paradoxically, New Jersey, a largely Democratic state that does not
have a proposed gay marriage ban on the ballot.
The Republican Senate candidate, State Senator Thomas H. Kean Jr., has been
distancing himself from his party throughout the campaign, in which he has
focused largely on economic issues, domestic security and alleged ethical
improprieties on the part of his Democratic opponent, Senator Robert Menendez.
A Kean spokeswoman said Thursday that theme is unlikely to change.
“We’re going to stick with the issues that we’ve been winning on this entire
campaign,” the spokeswoman, Jill Hazelbaker, said. Gay marriage, she said,
“is not an issue that he’s not talking about, or that he’s trying to avoid.
But in terms of our marquee issues that we’re winning on, I don’t think it rises
to an issue that’s going to define the campaign.”
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