The Dog That Won’t Bark
Evan Gerstmann , chair of the Political Science Department at LMU, comments on same-sex marriage and the 2008 Presidential Election

After John Kerry’s rather ignominious defeat in 2004, many prominent Democrats, including California’s own Senator Diane Feinstein, placed part of the blame on the push for same-sex marriage. It became accepted wisdom the issue was an albatross for the Democratic Party.

One of the fun and challenging things about being a college professor is that we sometimes get to prove the conventional wisdom wrong. In fact, rigorous studies of voting patterns have shown that the same-sex marriage issue had no effect at all on the 2004 election—not on independent voters, not on voters in “battleground” states, and not on voters where same-sex marriage referenda were on the ballot. This isn’t so surprising when you think about it. With stark differences between the parties on abortion rights, stem cell research, and prayer in schools, it is difficult to think of what sort of voter would lean Democrat despite all those issues but then vote Republican when same-sex marriage is thrown into the mix.

The 2008 election will have a different dynamic altogether with almost everybody converging toward the middle of the road. Virtually all of the Democratic frontrunners support civil unions for same-sex couples—basically all of the rights of marriage without the title of marriage—but not marriage rights.

There’s more variety among the Republicans, but they are mostly tacking toward the middle as well. Rudy Guliani is doing his best imitation of Bill Clinton-esque triangulation: supporting same-sex civil unions, just like the Democrats, but opposing them in the early primary state of New Hampshire, supposedly because the new law recognizes civil unions from other states. The up and coming conservative candidate Mike Huckabee has said he is open to states passing civil union laws and Fred Thompson has said that same-sex civil unions should be left to the states. Even Mitt Romney has balanced his opposition to both same-sex marriage and civil unions with kinder rhetoric about the Republicans needing to give “more support” to gays and lesbians.

In short, same-sex marriage was the dog that didn’t bark in 2004 and most likely won’t make so much as meow in 2008.