Gay Bush Aide? No Bombshell in Age of Fiscal Cares

Gay Bush Aide? No Bombshell in Age of Fiscal Cares
By KATE ZERNIKE
Copyright by The New York Times
Published: August 26, 2010
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/27/us/politics/27mehlman.html?_r=1&hpw


Had a former chairman of the Republican National Committee announced in 2004 that he was gay, it would have been a bombshell. In that hard-fought election year, Republicans and Democrats were rushing to condemn a court for establishing the right to same-sex marriage in Massachusetts.

Six years later, in a midterm election cycle that is otherwise fierce, campaigns are largely silent on the issue of same-sex marriage — even as two federal courts have issued similar decisions in recent months upholding the rights of gay people to wed. And when Ken Mehlman, who ran President George W. Bush’s re-election campaign in 2004 and then became the party’s chairman, said in an interview in The Atlantic this week that he is gay and is working to support a campaign for same-sex marriage, it was met with little controversy.

Even the commentary accusing him of hypocrisy seemed outweighed by people who wished him well, or merely shrugged.

The muted reaction reflects not only changing values in the country generally, but also, more notably, among many Republicans and conservatives.

The center of gravity of the conservative movement in this election season is with fiscal conservatives. The Tea Party is infusing the Republican Party with new energy, and Tea Party leaders and supporters say they do not want to talk about social issues: even if they do not personally support same-sex marriage or abortion, they think the Republican Party spent too much time talking about them and not enough time trying to rein in spending.

As head of the Republican National Committee, Mr. Mehlman advocated the Bush administration’s push for a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage, which Republicans had hoped would galvanize the party’s conservative base in 2006.

Now he joins several other members of the Bush inner circle who have publicly stated their support for same-sex marriage. Former Vice President Dick Cheney, who has a daughter who is gay, has said he supports the right of gay people to marry, as has the former first lady Laura Bush.

“There are now more and more Republicans, and conservative Republicans, who have talked about this issue through the prism of being an equal rights issue, and being an issue that should not define the conservative movement and the party,” said Steve Schmidt, who was part of that inner circle as a spokesman and strategist for Mr. Bush’s 2004 campaign.

Mr. Schmidt spoke of his support for same-sex marriage in 2008 to the Log Cabin Republicans, a gay rights group, when he was chief strategist for John McCain’s presidential run. Like Mr. Cheney, he spoke in personal terms, telling the group that his sister is gay and that she and her partner are an important part of his and his children’s lives.

Matthew Dowd, another top strategist for Mr. Bush who broke with him after the re-election campaign, said that same-sex marriage had ceased to be a big issue for many voters — including conservatives and religious ones — even in 2004. In polling and focus groups before that election, he said, Republicans and conservatives cited terrorism, taxes and the war in Iraq as the issues that would move them to the polls.

And even as many commentators declared that ballot initiatives on same-sex marriage that year drove conservatives to the polls for Mr. Bush, Mr. Dowd said that analyses showed that the initiatives stirred no statistical increase in turnout among conservatives or religious voters.

Mr. Mehlman told The Atlantic, “It’s taken me 43 years to get comfortable with this part of my life.” His announcement — and the relatively passive reaction to it — reflects how the country has shifted.

“It’s just not politics, it’s Hollywood folks who struggle with this, people in the news media struggle with it, athletes struggle with it, this question of whether or not they should be open,” Mr. Dowd said. “What we’re seeing is more and more people deciding that staying quiet for the rest of their lives is no longer an option.”

Still, voters may not want to institute same-sex marriage — recent campaigns failed in Northeastern states like New York, New Jersey and Maine, which are usually considered the province of liberalism.

And not all conservatives are willing to concede the fight on social issues.

Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, said Mr. Mehlman’s announcement helped explain “the scandalous failure” of the Republican establishment to fight same-sex marriage. “It is important for the conservative movement that the Republican Party remains committed to its longtime stance on core social issues,” he said.

But polls show acceptance of gays growing among Americans, on a variety of measures. In a Gallup poll in May, 52 percent of Americans said that gay and lesbian relations were “morally acceptable” — the first time that support had crossed what the polling group called the “symbolic threshold” of 50 percent.

Among conservatives, 33 percent agreed, up five percentage points since May 2006. Another Gallup poll in May found that 70 percent of Americans — and 53 percent of conservatives — favored allowing gays and lesbians to serve openly in the military.

The shift is being driven largely by demographics, as a younger generation grows up with more discussion and acceptance of gay rights.

In a New York Times/CBS News poll conducted in March 2004, a plurality of Americans under 45 — 35 percent — said there should be no legal recognition of gay and lesbian relationships. Forty-five percent of Americans 45 and older said the same. By April 2010, just 24 percent of Americans ages 18 to 44 surveyed said that there should be no legal recognition, and 35 percent of Americans 45 and older said the same.

“People want to make sure that government is not intrusive in our lives,” Mr. Dowd said. “Whether it’s the economy or our social lives.”