Debate Over on Gay Marriage? Daily Press: Strike Down DOMA and Gay Marriage Bans

The quality of the Daily Press - the newspaper that serves the Virginia Peninsula area - has become so bad that I typically don't even read it, although we get the paper three days a week.  And if the quality of the news coverage is bad, the editorial positions of the paper are generally even worse and not a far cry from an echo chamber Rush Limbaugh and right wing pundits.  

Thus, imagine my utter shock when I happened to see the subscription pay walled main editorial yesterday that in a well reasoned manner urged the United States Supreme Court to not only strike down DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act, but also all bans on gay marriage.  I literally nearly needed smelling salts.  I can only imagine the reactions from knuckle dragging readers in York County and in ultra-conservative pockets in the area.    Among other things the editorial cites the 14th Amendment of equal protection and equality for all citizens under the law, positions espoused in the Cato Foundation briefs in Hollingsworth v. Perry and United States v. Windsor, the position of the American Academy of Pediatrics and recent polls showing majority support for gay marriages.  The outraged letters to the editor should make for some fun reading!

All this raises the point of whether the debate on gay marriage is over outside of right wing media outlets and Christofascist organizations that use the dissemination of anti-gay animus as a main fundraising hook.  A column in the Washington Post looks at this question.  Here are excerpts:

[N]o matter how the high court rules later this year on California’s Proposition 8 and the Defense of Marriage Act, one thing is already clear: The political debate over gay marriage is over.   “There’s no putting this genie back in the bottle,” Florida-based Republican strategist Ana Navarro said Sunday on CNN. “This is now undeniable. The shift is here. We’re not going back.”

A look inside the numbers makes the case even more strongly. It’s no secret that the issue divides strongly along generational lines, with 80 percent of those ages 18 to 29 supportive of gay marriage, compared with 44 percent of those older than 65. But what’s remarkable is that the generational divide on the question is stronger than the partisan one. In the Post-ABC survey, a slim majority of Republicans and GOP-leaning independents younger than 50 now support gay marriage.  

It’s not just national surveys where the shift is evident. In a Columbus Dispatch poll released Sunday, 54 percent of Ohioans favor repealing a 2004 ballot initiative that established marriage as between a man and a woman in the state’s constitution. (The measure passed with 62 percent of the vote nine years ago.)

But, the trajectory of the data suggests that ambitious Republicans who want to win statewide in swing states or get elected president in 2016 and beyond simply won’t proactively talk about the issue. Outside of Republican primary fights, gay marriage will disappear from the national political dialogue as an issue.  

And what of those Republicans who continue to support gay marriage bans and/or urge the Supreme Court to "go slowly" such as Peggy Noonan?  They increasingly sound like the pro-slavery and segregationist of years gone by and seriously need to listen to what they are saying and take step back in time and realize who history is going to remember them:

Noonan said on ABC’s This Week that Americans “don’t take it well” when the Supreme Court makes decisions that affect the entire country — such as declaring Proposition 8 unconstitutional or repealing the Defense of Marriage Act . . . .

Noonan’s appeal to let the issue take time to “settle itself out” ignores the fact that activists have been fighting for marriage equality for nearly 40 years. And her insinuation that Americans won’t like it if the Court declares a ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional ignores that support for marriage equality is at an all time high: a Washington Post-ABC News poll found 58 percent of Americans support gay marriage rights, up from 37 percent in 2003. That 58 percent includes 81 percent of youth . . . 

Does Noonan really want to be seen by future generations as an equivalent to George Wallace standing in the school room door?   With even the Daily Press on record for marriage equality, Noonan needs to pack up and surrender on this issue.

GOP Smackdown: Wonks vs.Politicans

Bill Kristol, Peggy Noonan, Newt Gingrich and John Boehner

As noted any number of times on this blog, the remaining rational Republican/conservative pundits are increasingly distressed with the GOP's refusal to reform itself and face a changing political landscape.  Instead of reform and innovation, elected officials in the GOP continue to listen to the same religious extremists - e.g., the Family Research Council, the U.S. Catholic bishops, and other Christofascist groups - and anti-tax groups such as Grover Norquist's outfit that helped settle the stage for the 2012 election debacle.  A debacle that would have been complete at the national level but for the gerrymandering of Congressional districts.  A piece in Politico looks at the intra-party infighting.  Here are highlights:

The latest front in the battle for the future of the Republican Party: the wonks versus the pols.  Conservative thinkers are increasingly agitated that, four months after a second straight presidential drubbing, GOP officeholders are not taking bold steps to bring a 1980s-style Republican platform into the 21st century.

Almost daily, there is a fresh op-ed or magazine piece from the class of commentators and policy intellectuals urging Republicans to show a little intellectual leg and offer some daring and innovation beyond the old standbys of cutting income taxes and spending. It’s not that the eggheads are urging moderation — it’s more like relevance. The standard plea: The GOP will rebound only when it communicates to working-class and middle-class voters how its ideas will improve their lives.

But there is virtually no evidence that these impassioned appeals for change are being listened to by the audience that matters — Republican elected officials. With few exceptions, most of the GOP leadership in Washington is following a business-as-usual strategy. The language and tactics being used in this winter’s battles with President Barack Obama are tried-and-true Republican maxims that date back to the Reagan era or before. And that, say the wonks, spells political danger and more electoral decline.

Some of the conservative thinkers allow that the politicians are lagging indicators and have time before the next election. But the volume of the grumbling is ratcheting up as the party’s poll numbers continue to fall and the GOP’s fixation on austerity — and only austerity — appears increasingly out of tune.

“The problem with the deficit as an issue is that people care about economic growth more, and the problem with spending cuts is that people like them more in the abstract than in reality,” wrote National Review editor Rich Lowry in a POLITICO column last week, adding: “At times, it seems as if ‘we have a $16 trillion debt’ is the sum total of the party’s argumentation.”

Criticizing GOP inaction on the sequester, Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol lashed Republicans in the current issue of his magazine for being “complicit in the failure of political responsibility and national seriousness we’re now witnessing.

As long as the GOP remains beholden to the Tea Party lunatics and religious extremist who have taken over the party base, the pundit and wonk class can rant and complain all they want, but no real change will occur.  Change and innovation do not occur when elected officials are pandering to those detached from objective reality and those who want to turn time back by at least a century.

Who Can Win In November

I have admitted before that I am a political junkie. Therefore, bear with me during this current primary and presidential campaign cycle. One reader even asked me what I would do with myself once the election is over. The truth is that living in Virginia which has off year state elections, there are ALWAYS campaigns in progress. It is one reason party activists get burned out in this state - I did it for eight years and it gets exhausting at times. Plus, in Virginia we have to stave off anti-gay initiatives every year. But I digress.

Former Reagan speech writer, Peggy Noonan, had another interesting column in yesterday’s Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120241915915951669.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries) that looks at the Clinton-Obama contest, as well as her perceptions of what Obama would mean for the GOP in terms of restricting their dirty tricks campaign. I think she is right on the mark and once again cites factors that the Democrats MUST recognize if they want a victory in November. Readers should not assume I am a Hillary hater even though I am a former Republican. In fact, I watched a piece on Hillary the other night and I will admit, it left me thinking that perhaps she might not do badly as president (I’d feel even better about it if she had divorced Bill). The sad truth is that the deck is stacked against her and not wholly due to her own doing. Here are some column highlights:

Mr. Obama's achievement on Super Tuesday was solid and reinforced trend lines. The popular vote was a draw, the delegate count a rough draw, but he won 13 states, and when you look at the map he captured the middle of the country from Illinois straight across to Idaho, with a second band, in the northern Midwest, of Minnesota and North Dakota. He won Missouri and Connecticut, in Mrs. Clinton's backyard. He won the Democrats of the red states.

On the wires Wednesday her staff was all but conceding she is not going to win the next primaries. Her superdelegates are coming under pressure that is about to become unrelenting. It was easy for party hacks to cleave to Mrs. Clinton when she was inevitable. Now Mr. Obama's people are reportedly calling them saying, Your state voted for me and so did your congressional district. Are you going to jeopardize your career and buck the wishes of the people back home?

Mrs. Clinton is stoking the idea that Mr. Obama is too soft to withstand the dread Republican attack machine. But Mr. Obama will not be easy for Republicans to attack. He will be hard to get at, hard to address. There are many reasons, but a primary one is that the fact of his race will freeze them. No one, no candidate, no party, no heavy-breathing consultant, will want to cross any line--lines that have never been drawn, that are sure to be shifting and not always visible--in approaching the first major-party African-American nominee for president of the United States.

He is the brilliant young black man as American dream. No consultant, no matter how opportunistic and hungry, will think it easy--or professionally desirable--to take him down in a low manner. If anything, they've learned from the Clintons in South Carolina what that gets you. . . . With Mr. Obama the campaign will be about issues. "He'll raise your taxes." He will, and I suspect Americans may vote for him anyway. But the race won't go low.

Mrs. Clinton would be easier for Republicans. With her cavalcade of scandals, they'd be delighted to go at her. They'd get medals for it. Consultants would get rich on it. The Democrats have it exactly wrong. Hillary is the easier candidate, Mr. Obama the tougher. Hillary brings negative; it's fair to hit her back with negative. Mr. Obama brings hope, and speaks of a better way. He's not Bambi, he's bulletproof.

The biggest problem for the Republicans will be that no matter what they say that is not issue oriented--"He's too young, he's never run anything, he's not fully baked"--the mainstream media will tag them as dealing in racial overtones, or undertones. You can bet on this. Go to the bank on it. The Democrats continue not to recognize what they have in this guy. Believe me, Republican professionals know. They can tell.