Referenda on same-sex marriage
May. 16th, 2012 09:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
A nice explanation at Washington Monthly: If Same-Sex Marriage Is So Popular, Why Does It Always Lose at the Ballot Box?
This is still a key talking point of SSM opponents, that gay marriage hasn't won a referendum yet. There are two reasons for this: first, most of these referenda on constitutional bans took place years ago when there was less popular support than there is now, and, second, most of them have been in states where support was lowest. There was a wave of them in conservative states in 2004, which helped turn out the base for the presidential election. California in 2008 may have been the highest-profile case, but it was also exceptional.
He doesn't get into it there, but there are pretty obvious reasons for this. The votes on the subject have in most cases been for constitutional amendments to overturn a judicial ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, or to preempt an imagined one. Those campaigns are run by opponents. Proponents of same-sex marriage have indeed been ahead of the public-opinion curve, but they also usually have little motivation to legalize it in a referendum even if they possibly could. They generally regard marriage as a basic civil right that shouldn't be determined by plebiscite. Referendum campaigns are also generally ugly affairs, in which opponents have a strong motivation to drum up anti-gay fear in the general population.
Nowhere is this clearer than in New Jersey. Same-sex marriage has pretty clear majority support there in opinion polls. The legislature attempted to legalize it by statute, but it was vetoed by Governor Chris Christie, who said he thought there ought to be a referendum on it. Gay-marriage supporters refused to take the bait, saying that they'd work on overriding the veto in the legislature instead, even if it took longer.
2012 looks like it might be slightly different, since referenda are happening in the fall in three states where a win is actually possible, with varying degrees of likelihood. Washington state and Maryland have both passed laws legalizing same-sex marriage, but both states have provisions allowing opponents to force a referendum. If they can collect the necessary signatures (which is likely in both cases), the law doesn't take effect until the referendum passes.
Meanwhile, Maine is actually having a referendum to pass same-sex marriage by law, because they went the Washington/Maryland route in 2009 and the law was rejected by referendum then. I suppose there would be a referendum whether they went through the legislature or not.
I think I'd score Maine as the most likely place for a win, with Washington in second and Maryland third. Opponents are trying all the usual scare tactics in Maine, but the 2009 vote was fairly close, it was an off-year election (albeit an unusually high-turnout one), and opinion has continued to shift. One thing about Maine is, it's completely surrounded by jurisdictions where same-sex marriage has been legal for some time, so the more lurid fantasies about what happens in SSM states are probably not going to fly.
This is still a key talking point of SSM opponents, that gay marriage hasn't won a referendum yet. There are two reasons for this: first, most of these referenda on constitutional bans took place years ago when there was less popular support than there is now, and, second, most of them have been in states where support was lowest. There was a wave of them in conservative states in 2004, which helped turn out the base for the presidential election. California in 2008 may have been the highest-profile case, but it was also exceptional.
He doesn't get into it there, but there are pretty obvious reasons for this. The votes on the subject have in most cases been for constitutional amendments to overturn a judicial ruling in favor of same-sex marriage, or to preempt an imagined one. Those campaigns are run by opponents. Proponents of same-sex marriage have indeed been ahead of the public-opinion curve, but they also usually have little motivation to legalize it in a referendum even if they possibly could. They generally regard marriage as a basic civil right that shouldn't be determined by plebiscite. Referendum campaigns are also generally ugly affairs, in which opponents have a strong motivation to drum up anti-gay fear in the general population.
Nowhere is this clearer than in New Jersey. Same-sex marriage has pretty clear majority support there in opinion polls. The legislature attempted to legalize it by statute, but it was vetoed by Governor Chris Christie, who said he thought there ought to be a referendum on it. Gay-marriage supporters refused to take the bait, saying that they'd work on overriding the veto in the legislature instead, even if it took longer.
2012 looks like it might be slightly different, since referenda are happening in the fall in three states where a win is actually possible, with varying degrees of likelihood. Washington state and Maryland have both passed laws legalizing same-sex marriage, but both states have provisions allowing opponents to force a referendum. If they can collect the necessary signatures (which is likely in both cases), the law doesn't take effect until the referendum passes.
Meanwhile, Maine is actually having a referendum to pass same-sex marriage by law, because they went the Washington/Maryland route in 2009 and the law was rejected by referendum then. I suppose there would be a referendum whether they went through the legislature or not.
I think I'd score Maine as the most likely place for a win, with Washington in second and Maryland third. Opponents are trying all the usual scare tactics in Maine, but the 2009 vote was fairly close, it was an off-year election (albeit an unusually high-turnout one), and opinion has continued to shift. One thing about Maine is, it's completely surrounded by jurisdictions where same-sex marriage has been legal for some time, so the more lurid fantasies about what happens in SSM states are probably not going to fly.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-16 02:15 pm (UTC)As an Arkansan by birth I always check to make sure that Mississippi is at the bottom of these sorts of lists. Yup, good old Mississippi, still making the rest of the South look comparatively respectable.
At the other end of the scale, the governor of my current home, Rhode Island, announced the other day that same-sex marriages performed in other states would be recognized here. "Chafee called his order an important step but said he would continue to press for Rhode Island to enact gay marriage." (We do have civil unions, in a legislative compromise that angered lots of people on both sides of the issue last year.)
no subject
Date: 2012-05-16 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-16 03:07 pm (UTC)That might conceivably have made opposition a little more entrenched by 2004 than it would have been otherwise, in what was generally a liberal state. I'm thinking the subsequent evolution there is best seen as a regression toward average blue-state sentiment.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-16 03:37 pm (UTC)There was an early-adopter effect: it was a reciprocal-beneficiary status that was pretty weak by modern standards (they've had civil unions since the beginning of this year). California passed domestic partnerships in 1999, but in that case they were gradually strengthened over the years to the point where they're effectively civil unions.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-17 02:38 am (UTC)Since I'm out by both name and sexuality on the local newspaper forums, populated by local police and politicians (none of whom are particularly fond of me), I admit I'm concerned. That's how bad it's gotten in Kansas.
I know that trollish lady on James Nicoll's journal says things will change in 20 years so what's the worry, but this is the worry. Obviously, change is happening in more urban states where most of the population is. It won't happen in the rest of the country for a very long time.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-17 02:40 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-17 11:05 am (UTC)As I said somewhere on Scalzi's blog, I think the state-by-state campaign on this particular subject is going to hit a brick wall once it's won all the coastal and Midwestern blue states, and then there will be a long pause. And I don't think the Supreme Court is going to do anything so huge as legalize same-sex marriage in all fifty states until the state bans are almost all gone and there's a clear national consensus. I'd love to be wrong.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-17 11:58 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-17 12:57 pm (UTC)I do not think the current Supreme Court lineup would override all state gay-marriage bans. You never know, because Anthony Kennedy seems to swing more liberal on gay rights than on other issues, but it'd probably take at least one or two more liberal appointees. As it is, Romney has a fair chance of winning the election and appointing two or three more Scalia clones, which would lock in the right-wing majority for decades.
no subject
Date: 2012-05-17 01:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-17 11:07 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-17 11:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-19 02:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-05-20 01:55 am (UTC)