"Gays Ponder Bush Victory:
President Takes One Quarter of Gay Vote, Stunning Some Activists"
Lou Chibarro Jr., Washington Blade
Gay rights leaders pored over the numbers behind President Bush's
victory over Senator John Kerry in Tuesday's election to assess
whether gay marriage provided the president with the hot-button
social issue he needed to propel him to a second term in the White House.Following Kerry's speech conceding defeat on Wednesday, political
observers with both parties joined news media commentators in an
unprecedented discussion linking a gay rights issue to the outcome of
a U.S. presidential election.
Citing exit polls that showed "moral values" the most important issue
for a plurality of voters — ahead of the economy, jobs, terrorism and
the Iraq war — some concluded that the gay marriage debate helped
Bush deflect voter concerns on those other issues.
Bush won the popular vote 51.1 percent to 48 percent, capturing about
3.5 million more votes than Kerry. Projections have Bush winning 274
electoral votes compared to Kerry's 252.
When President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney appeared Wednesday
afternoon at the Reagan Federal Building to make their victory
speeches, both men were joined by their families. Among the Cheney
clan on stage was the vice president's lesbian daughter Mary, and her
partner Heather Poe.
Mary Cheney appeared in excellent spirits during the rally, clapping
along with the audience and for the president. Poe, while smiling,
did not join in applauding the president or vice president during the
course of their speeches.
Because neither woman has consented to interviews, gay observers
often resort to reading into their brief public appearances to gauge
their mood and their views on the campaign.
After Senator Kerry directly referenced Mary Cheney — though not by
name — in the final presidential debate, the Cheney family and the
Bush campaign reacted aggressively, suggesting Kerry would say
anything and offend familial privacy to be elected.
The exit poll results, conducted by a consortium of news media
outlets, showed that "moral values" was cited by the greatest number
of voters (22 percent) as the most important issue in the
presidential election, drawing commentary from pundits on both ends
of the ideological spectrum.
"It's unfortunate, but it's just one of those situations where the
community's interests were not met by the outcome of the election,"
said Jeff Trammell, the Kerry campaign's national outreach director
to the gay community.
"The lesson to our community is that we have an awful lot of work to
do," said Trammell, who is gay.
Other gay activists joined Trammell in concluding that the Bush
campaign strategy, devised by White House political director Karl
Rove, of using gay marriage as a "wedge issue" to bring out more
evangelical, Christian voters who lean toward the president appears
to have worked.
National Gay & Lesbian Task Force Executive Director Matt Foreman
disputed this assessment, pointing to election return data showing
that more votes were cast for the presidential candidates than were
cast for ballot initiatives seeking to ban same-sex marriage in most
of the 11 states where the initiatives were on the ballot.
Foreman noted that 199,435 more votes were cast in Ohio in the
presidential race than in that state's highly publicized initiative
to ban gay marriage.
"This shows that it was the presidential race that pulled people to
the polls, not the initiative," Foreman said. This appears to refute
the so-called Rove "wedge issue" strategy, Foreman said.
Politicians Fanned the Fire
Congressman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) said he believes the marriage
issue prompted more conservative voters to turn out for Bush. Frank
blamed the decision by gay-supportive elected officials in
California, New York, New Mexico and other places to issue marriage
licenses to gay couples without the official legal authorization to
do so, saying it played into the hands of Republican strategists like
Rove.
He said it hurt Kerry in the election.
"That created an appearance that this was getting out of control,"
Frank said.
Frank said he favored efforts in Massachusetts and other states to
file lawsuits to overturn laws banning same-sex marriage but said it
was counterproductive to issue marriage licenses in areas where
courts had yet to rule on the matter.
"It's clear that the conservatives won a big victory on Tuesday,"
Frank said. He said he was fearful that Bush was now in a position to
push through enough Supreme Court appointments to place in jeopardy
the Lawrence vs. Texas decision, which overturned state sodomy laws,
as well as the Roe vs. Wade decision that provided the right for
women to obtain an abortion.
Bush Wins Quarter of Gay Vote
Meanwhile, the nationwide exit poll conducted for a consortium of
news media outlets showed that four percent of the electorate
identified itself as gay male, lesbian, or bisexual.
Of that total, Kerry won 77 percent of the gay vote compared to 23
percent for Bush, the exit poll showed. Independent presidential
contender Ralph Nader received less than one percent, the poll
showed.
Although the poll shows that Kerry won handily among gays, many gay
activists said they were baffled over why 23 percent of the gay
electorate — which translates into more than one million gays — would
vote for a president who pushed for a constitutional amendment to ban
same-sex marriage.
An exit poll conducted four years ago showed that Bush received a
nearly identical percentage of the gay vote when he ran against Vice
President Al Gore.
Patrick Guerriero, executive director of Log Cabin Republicans, the
national gay group that chose not to endorse Bush, said he was not
surprised over the size of the gay vote for Bush.
"I predicted that Bush could get as much as 30 percent of the gay
vote in the middle of a war on terrorism," Guerriero said.
Gay Republican activist Carl Schmid of D.C. said he, too, wasn't
surprised over the gay GOP vote.
"Obviously, gay people vote on issues other than gay issues," said
Schmid. "Everyone knows who is better on gay issues. But there are
other issues that people think are important."
Repairing the Rift
Guerriero said Log Cabin would immediately seek to build bridges
between the Bush White House and gays, but he said gay activists
would have to also build bridges to the segments of the American
electorate that put Bush in office.
"Whether we like it or not, the gay community has a lot of work to
do," Guerriero said. "It has not changed the hearts and minds of
Americans in the South and in other key states," he said.
"Rove's strategy was very successful, as reprehensible as we may feel
it is," he said.
Schmid cautioned that gay leaders should refrain from attacking
Republicans on gay-related issues, saying national and local gay
political groups must devise a strategy for educating voters in "the
heartland" on gay issues.
"People blame Republicans, but they are reflecting America," he said.
"It's not that they are all anti-gay. We raised the marriage issue.
We raised the bar, and people reacted to that," he said.
White House Cold Shoulder
Cheryl Jacques, president of the Human Rights Campaign, the nation's
largest gay political group, which endorsed Kerry, said gay groups
sought to work with the Bush administration during the past four
years. She said it was the president, not gays, that widened the
gay-GOP rift.
"The Human Rights Campaign reached out to a first-term President Bush
in the hope that he would truly be a compassionate conservative and
be a uniter, as he claimed to be," Jacques said.
"And that was not to be the case. We have very little expectations
that he will change his stripes, although we will always try. We are
always willing to work with anyone to move forward fair-minded
policies."
In a seeming contradiction, the exit poll sponsored by the news media
outlets, which consisted of a sample of 13,331 voters, showed that
voters expressed considerable support for the rights of same-sex
couples.
Of those questioned, 26 percent said they support the right of
same-sex couples to "legally marry;" 35 percent said they favor
"civil union," indicating a total of 61 percent of those voting in
the presidential election favor some form of legal recognition for
gay couples.
Thirty-six percent said they wanted "no legal recognition" for
same-sex couples.
The poll showed that 21 percent of those saying they voted for Bush
favored the right of same-sex couples to legally marry, with 51
percent of Bush voters expressing support for civil unions.
Sixty-nine percent of Bush voters favored no legal recognition for
same-sex couples.
Among Kerry voters, 77 percent expressed support for gays to legally
marry, 48 percent said they favor civil unions, and 30 percent said
they favor no legal recognition of same-sex couples.
B>Black Support for Bush Stays Flat
Sean Cahill, NGLTF's director of research, said the exit poll
findings also showed that the African-American vote for Bush
increased by only two points, from 9 percent in the 2000 presidential
election, to 11 percent this year, according to the exit poll.
Cahill called the increase statistically insignificant and said it
indicates efforts by social conservative leaders to use the gay
marriage issue to increase support for Bush among African-American
voters failed.
The exit poll shows that Kerry won the African-American vote by a
margin of 89 percent to 11 percent.
However, the exit poll shows that while Kerry also won the Latino
vote, Latinos voted for Bush in greater numbers this year than four
years ago, indicating that the gay marriage issue or "moral values"
could have played a role in that shift, according to some
commentators.
Bush received 42 percent of the Latino vote on Tuesday, compared to
55 percent for Kerry. Four years ago, Bush received 35 percent of the
Latino vote.
The increase comes at a time when the Bush administration has angered
Latino leaders over immigration policies. Some observers, such as CNN
commentator Jeff Greenfield, speculated that "morals" issues prompted
many Latinos, especially those in New Mexico, which Kerry had hoped
to win, vote for Bush.
"This election shows that the gay community must reassess its
strategy," said gay Republican activist James Driscoll of Virginia,
who blames the marriage issue for contributing to Kerry's defeat and
for creating a rift between many gay Republicans and the Bush
administration.
Driscoll said that, unlike other key constituency groups, gay leaders
did not moderate their political demands, which resulted in an
alienation from large numbers of voters.
"The African-American community didn't ask for reparations for
slavery," Driscoll said. The religious right did not demand an end to
all abortions, even though religious right advocates favor making all
abortions illegal, he added.
"We have seriously marginalized ourselves on the gay marriage issue,"
he said. "This will damage us on other issues, such as
non-discrimination laws. I really feel the leadership of our
community has to reevaluate this," he said.
[Lou Chibbaro Jr. can be reached at lchibbaro@washblade.com.]
