Eighty-five percent of the 13
Republican legislators who voted for gay marriage since the 2010
election won reelection, a new report has concluded.
The report, titled Pro-Marriage
Legislators Win Elections, was compiled by Freedom to Marry and
Third Way.
“Supporting marriage for gay couples
should no longer be considered a political risk for Democrats –
even those in moderate districts,” the
report's authors wrote. “In fact, all but 1 of the 139
Democrats who ran without being under an ethics investigation won
re-election. For Republicans, the issue may still play a small role
in primary campaigns, but at least 85% of Republican legislators who
voted for marriage since the 2010 election did not lose their seat
because of it. By the 2014 election, we expect marriage votes to
have an even more negligible effect than they had in 2012.”
The report refutes talking points of
opponents in dismissing the more than 100 prominent Republicans who
have filed a legal brief urging the U.S. Supreme Court to strike down
Proposition 8, California's amendment limiting marriage to
heterosexual couples.
In interviews on CNN and CBN, Thomas
Peters of the National Organization for Marriage (NOM) insisted that
Republicans who support marriage equality lose elections.
“If you look at this list of
Republican signers, the one thing they almost all have in common is
that they are not in office anymore. They don't have to face the
voters with their new marriage views. … [W]hen Republicans switch
their views on marriage, they lose elections. … The Republican
Party, I think, is strongly pro-marriage. It's our opponents who are
trying to confuse the issue,” he said.
(Related: NOM's
Thomas Peters: Obama has no credibility on issue of gay marriage.)
Jon Cowan, president of Third Way, said
the report shows that supporting marriage equality is an asset for
lawmakers.
“The 2012 election illustrated that
moderate Americans have largely completed their journey on this issue
and now see a lawmaker's support for marriage equality as a reason to
vote for, not against, that candidate,” Cowan said in a statement.
“This latest comprehensive study of the fate of state legislators
who voted for marriage makes evident that pro-marriage legislators of
both parties can win in districts that span the regional and
ideological spectrum.”