GOP ought to quit same-sex marriage fight | Bill Cotterell
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Republicans should accept same-sex marriage and quit their long-running resistance to a once-hot topic that just doesn’t rile up voters anymore.
They can tell themselves, “We’re right and they’re wrong,” if that makes them feel better. That’s how southern Democrats fought racial integration in the last century, and it worked for a while, although the smarter governors and Congress members knew they couldn’t flog that dead horse back to life.
The U.S. House passed the “Respect for Marriage Act” last month. All House Democrats and 47 Republicans voted for it, including six of Florida’s 16 GOP members.
But 157 Republicans voted against House passage. Its chances are iffy in the Senate, where Florida Sen. Marco Rubio called the bill “a stupid waste of time.”
Rep. Val Demings, the Orlando Democrat running against Rubio, supports the bill and we’re sure to hear much of it in their hot race. Demings calls it respect for personal freedom, while Rubio says he wants to work on more important things like the economy.
The bill was prompted by something Justice Clarence Thomas said June 24 in the Supreme Court ruling on abortion. In striking down the 1973 Roe v. Wade precedent, Thomas suggested the court re-examine other cases involving “substantive due process” — maybe those permitting same-sex marriage, private acts between consenting adults and contraception.
Griswold, Lawrence, and Obergefell: Clarence Thomas calls for Supreme Court to 'reconsider' gay marriage, contraception after Roe v. Wade falls
No other justices joined him, and the ruling specified it applied only to abortion. But a lot of people were rightly worried that other personal freedoms might be next on the docket.
So, the House moved to codify marriage equality into law, as the Biden Administration also hopes to do with abortion rights. If enacted, the Respect for Marriage Act would repeal the 1995 Defense of Marriage Act, which was nullified by the Supreme Court seven years ago and would recognize same-gender marriage by statute in case the justices decide to revisit that 2015 ruling.
Rubio and other opponents can reasonably argue that there are no pending legal challenges to contraception, marriage, or consensual sex acts. There is no groundswell of public opposition to those things, like there was against abortion for 50 years.
The House Democrats pounced on an opportunity to upstage the conservatives — to lob a fat, slow-moving softball over to the Senate, confident the Republicans will whiff it. Regardless of his reasons, a response like Rubio’s is a needless insult to millions of LGBTQ people.
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A Gallup Poll last month indicated 71% public support for marriage equality. You’d think Republicans, the conservative party, would favor people marrying, settling down and forming families. The essence of conservatism ought to be leaving people alone, and same-sex couples aren’t hurting anyone.
Anti-gay fear mongering used to be a winning tactic for the GOP. After Massachusetts recognized same-sex unions, 11 states put constitutional amendments on their 2004 ballots to define marriage as the joining of one man and one woman.
The ballot initiatives all passed, and George W. Bush carried nine of those states. Marriage wasn’t the deciding issue, of course, but it was a sharp wedge between Democrats and Republicans 18 years ago.
Florida followed in 2008 with its own “defense of marriage” amendment, passed by 62% of the voters.
From “drag queen story hour” at libraries to children seeing drag shows at a Miami brunch spot, from removing schoolbooks to forbidding the mention of sexual matters in classrooms, the Republicans are mining parental concern for political gold in this election year.
Rubio will probably win a third term in November for many reasons, including his incumbency and the fact that Biden's party always gets clobbered in mid-term elections.
But marriage equality is already settled by the Supreme Court, the public has accepted it, and couples aren’t posing any societal problem by marrying. Simply recognizing reality in the statutes is not “a stupid waste of time.”
Bill Cotterell is a retired Tallahassee Democrat capitol reporter who writes a twice-weekly column. He can be reached at bcotterell@tallahassee.com
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This article originally appeared on Tallahassee Democrat: Same-sex marriage battle: GOP ought to quit the fight | Bill Cotterell
