As Political Mood Shifts, So Do Anti-Gay Arguments

The conservative movement has been going through growing pains as of late. The upstart Tea Party and their economic arguments appear to be sucking all the air out of the political room, pushing the more traditional Republican populations to the sidelines, where they struggle to find a fit for their moralistic arguments against perceived social ills, like gay marriage. After a brief fall from grace, social conservatives have found a way to break into the electoral zeitgeist: shifting gay rights from a religious debate to one based on commerce. But will it pay off?

Grover Norquist, president of the fiercely conservative Americans for Tax Reform, raised eyebrows last week when he announced a partnership with the lavender-tinged GOProud, a more fiscally minded breakaway of the Log Cabin Republicans. “GOProud is an important part of the conservative movement,” Norquist said in a statement. “I am proud to join GOProud’s Board of Advisors and to help in advancing their common-sense conservative agenda of limited government, lower taxes and individual liberty.” Many of Norquist’s former ideological allies see this not as a step forward, but as a step back.

It didn’t take long for faith-based groups to come out against Norquist, who was once a rightwing icon, thanks to his strong ties to Republican demigod Ronald Reagan. “Grover is usually a masterful Republican strategist and coalition builder — but in this case, he seems prepared to compromise a unified conservative movement in order to appease a tiny minority of the overall population,” wrote a blogger from the Family Research Council. “GOProud is not a conservative organization that happens to be gay.” Focus on the Family released a similarly negative missive, “Grover’s move to join the ranks of those who perpetuate the gay agenda, which has in its crosshairs the destruction of marriage, is as dishonoring to the movement he claims, as it is disheartening.” These “outrages” aren’t surprising. Their arguments, however, detract from more tried-and-true anti-gay methods.

Past arguments against gay rights have revolved around the ever-subjective morality. We gays are full of sin; same-sex nuptials will lead to civilization's unholy destruction; religious leaders will be censored. As the political tides and moods shift, however, FRC, Focus and other Republican stalwarts are evolving their message. It is still, however, just as erroneous. FRC’s statement against GOProud claims, “One of the group's top 10 "principles" is to create "enterprise zones" for homosexuals, despite the fact that the average income for gays and lesbians is higher than most everyone else.” While FRC would like to turn gays into rhetorical, antagonistic “rich Jews” who take all the money, data shows that lesbian families are more likely to live in poverty than their heterosexual counterparts. Gay male families are about even with more “mainstream” family units. Focus on the Family, meanwhile, takes a similarly misleading path.

The Focus argument claims that “Never-married single parents and divorced families (family fragmentation) cost the American taxpayers $112 billion each year” and “A child living with a married mother and father is significantly less likely than his peers in all other family forms to spend even one year living in poverty.” While certainly broken families can lead to poverty, that doesn’t mean that a gay household brings about poverty. In fact, if FRC’s aforementioned statement is to be believed, gay families could greatly improve the nation’s economic status.

Religious organizations aren’t the only groups using an economic argument against gay rights. Michael Steele, Chairman of the Republican National Committee, claimed last week that gay marriage would hurt small businesses. “All of a sudden I’ve got someone who wasn’t a spouse before, that I had no responsibility for, who is now getting claimed as a spouse that I now have financial responsibility for,” Steele said to Georgia-based Republicans last week. “So how do I pay for that? Who pays for that? You just cost me money.” If Steele and his party peers have their way, we gays will be less of a social plight and more of an economic burden.

None of these people, however have examined the financial benefits of gay marriage: tax breaks for marriage couples or that studies estimate California’s potential marriage equality could generate about $700 million in wedding-related funds over three years, and nearly $64 million in revenue for the cash-strapped state.  Even the Congressional Budget Office agrees that equalizing marriage laws would be an economic boon, although relatively small when compared to the nation’s entire piggy bank. “…Legalization of same-sex marriages would have only a small impact on federal tax revenues,” CBO wrote in a 2004 report, “Revenues would be slightly higher by less than $400 million a year from 2005 through 2010 and by $500 million to $700 million annually from 2011 through 2014. Those amounts represent less than 0.1 percent of total federal revenues.” But at this point in our economic lifeline, beggars can’t be choosers.

The economics of marriage have long been part of this culture war. These latest blows from the right wing, however, suggest that economics will be paid more lip service as the battle moves forward. It’s a clever tactic, yes, although I sincerely hope that the American people have more sense than to believe these dollar and cents arguments. But, then again, some poor, misguided people, such as Mike Huckabee, also believe that gay love’s like incest, so perhaps I shouldn’t be betting on cold hard logic …

Image via What What's Flickr