It’s one of the more enduring political myths of recent years: if conservatives can get an anti-gay marriage initiative on the ballot in a state, Republicans will win. The argument gained serious traction in 2004 when anti-gay ballot measures appeared to help Bush win a second term, particularly in states like Ohio.
At first glance, the idea seems to have merit. Conservative voters, some of whom may be inclined to stay home on Election Day, feel compelled to go to the polls out of a personality animosity against gay people. While they’re behind the curtain voting against same-sex relationships, they go ahead and vote for Republicans, who share their distaste for marriage equality.
It’s this approach that led many states to rush anti-gay initiatives onto statewide ballots this year, hoping to give GOP candidates one last break in an otherwise anti-GOP year. As Ben Adler noted, however, if the goal was to help Republican candidates win, the anti-gay measures failed miserably.
States that passed anti-gay marriage initiatives showed no more tendency to swing Republican than the nation as a whole. Blue-leaning swing state Wisconsin and red-leaning swing state Colorado both passed anti-gay marriage initiatives, but the Democrats swept the races for senator and governor and won a close key House race in each. In red Virginia, incumbent Senator George Allen was narrowly knocked off despite a successful anti-gay marriage initiative on the ballot there. Meanwhile, in Arizona, where Democrats had hoped to take out Senator Jon Kyl, the party fell short by nine points while a gay marriage ban was defeated at the polls.
What gives?
As Adler explained very well, the alleged trend was always more “mirage” than movement, and this year’s results help prove it.
Hunter College political scientist Kenneth Sherrill noted in a study for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, “the election returns indicate that President Bush did less well in these battleground states with anti-same-sex marriage ballot initiatives than in battleground states that did not have referenda on same-sex marriage [emphasis in original].”
Sure, Christian conservatives turned out in greater numbers in 2004, with the anti-gay initiatives on the ballot, but then again, so did everyone else. Nevertheless, the myth took hold and was repeated frequently in the media. If they’re paying attention to this year’s results, the myth has been busted.
If anti-gay marriage referenda really did boost conservative turnout, then Republican candidates in states with them on the ballot would have presumably outperformed their poll numbers due to higher turnout among the measures’ supporters. But in the end, Webb squeaked out a victory that the polls did not clearly predict, while in staunchly Republican Tennessee, black Democrat Harold Ford Jr. lost to Republican Bob Corker by only three points, when most polls in the final week of the campaign had him losing by several more.
All in all, gay marriage policies, including not only anti-marriage referenda but also the New Jersey Supreme Court’s pro-gay marriage decision, proved to be an electoral dog that didn’t bark this year. Although the claim that ballot initiatives were Karl Rove’s secret WMD had actually already been debunked, the Republican victory in 2004 served to obscure that fact.
I don’t know if this will put the myth to rest for ’08, but if the right is looking for a “secret WMD” for the next cycle, gay bashing probably won’t do the trick.