With the State Attorney General of Pennsylvania stating that she will not defend Pennsylvania's ban on gay marriage and some county clerks issuing marriage licenses to same sex couples and one mayor conducting marriages, the hot potato issue of gay marriage has landed firmly in the lap of Pennsylvania's GOP governor, Tom Corbett (pictured above). It's an issue that is probably a lose-lose situation for Corbett, whose popularity has plummeted, but the Christofascists in the GOP base will be screaming for his head on a pike if he does not defend the law.
Politico looks at Corbett's unwanted position. Here are highlights:
Defending a divisive gay marriage ban is probably not the fight
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett would have chosen 15 months ahead of an
election he’s widely expected to lose. A majority of Pennsylvanians now
support same-sex marriage, a dramatic shift from just a few years ago. But the issue has been thrust in the first-term Republican’s lap — and the politics may not be all bad for him.
Corbett’s decision to stand by the state’s 1996 ban will help shore up
his shaky support among Republicans and all but eliminates the
possibility of a primary challenge from the right, strategists said.
But the conflict between Corbett and Kathleen Kane, Pennsylvania’s
attorney general, also prolongs a conversation about an increasingly
unpopular law when the governor is struggling to pick up every vote he
can. A June poll out
of Quinnipiac University said that Corbett, who is in his first term,
has a dismal 30 percent favorability rating among Pennsylvania voters.
Although the defense of such challenges ordinarily falls under the
purview of the state attorney general, Kane made the rare decision to
not to back the law, saying she believes it to be “wholly
unconstitutional.”
That put Corbett, one of the least popular governors in the country,
in a tough spot: defend a law that a growing number of voters disagree
with; or side with Kane and anger the GOP base. On July 30, he chose the former.
Corbett’s decision adds gay marriage to the list of issues he must
juggle ahead of what’s expected to be a vicious reelection fight. His
tanking popularity and struggles to push his agenda through a
legislature controlled by his own party — privatizing liquor stores,
public pension reform and transportation funding — have prompted several
Democrats to jump into next year’s race.
Although the decision angered Democrats and could alienate moderate
Republicans from the must-win Philadelphia suburbs, analysts said that
in defending the law, Corbett all but guaranteed himself a straight shot
at the Republican nomination, which had looked to be in jeopardy.
Nevertheless, strategists said the debate over gay marriage will remain
at the forefront of Pennsylvania politics in the coming months. The fact
that the state’s attorney general and governor are at odds on the
legality of a law passed by the state legislature will provide ample
fodder for the media.ot
For Corbett, the extended coverage is less than welcome news. In
2006, a decade after the marriage law in question was passed, just 33
percent of Pennsylvanian vers approved of gay marriage. That number
shot up by about 20 percentage points in the past seven years. A February Franklin and Marshall poll
found that 52 percent of Pennsylvania voters approve of gay marriage,
the first time a public poll registered majority support. This number
increased to 54 percent by May.
The ACLU lawsuit isn’t all that’s fueling the gay marriage controversy.
The Corbett administration recently sued Montgomery County register of
wills D. Bruce Hanes after he began issuing marriage licenses to
same-sex couples after the Supreme Court struck down DOMA. And the mayor
of Braddock, a Pittsburgh suburb, officiated a gay marriage on Monday
in defiance of the law.
Slowly but surely catering to the Christofascists will be the death of the GOP.
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