Do you think more and more states voting for gay marriage will help the Republicans?

Helping all citizens to have the same rights will be good for everyone. This isn’t the civil war era.

No, it won’t help the Republicans. It won’t hurt them either unless they continue to allow people like Santorum, Huckabee, Bachmann, and Ryan have a platform to proclaim their hateful views.

I think what it is going to do is force a showdown in the “states rights” vs “federal power” arena.

We are witnessing a generational shift. The republicans of today will not resemble the Republicans of tomorrow.

I think of it as there will always be a conservative party and a party of the enlightenment. The Republican party in 30 years will be defending the Democratic party platform of today, as if they can prove descent from the founding fathers. Some people just don’t like change.

I guess it is about time. Legend has it that, as he put down his pen, LBJ told an aide, “We have lost the South for a generation”, anticipating a coming backlash from Southern whites against the Democratic stand on Civil Rights.

I don’t see it benefiting any party, equal rights are long overdue.

No, I think will be a hot button issue for years, much like pro-life/pro-choice like you mention:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_law_in_the_United_States_by_state

I kept hearing people say that if you voted for a party two elections in a row, that tended to confirm you as leaning that way for the rest of your life. I head that several times on election day. They were saying that two votes for Obama from young voters is a problem for Republicans.

@wundayatta Do you agree with that? I don’t think that is necessariy true. It depends on what the Republicans do next time around I think, and where the country is at the time of the election.

I don’t see how this will help Republicans.
I have a long memory and am not gay. If I were gay, I’d make a point of never voting Republican again, unless there was a buffoon running on the Dem ticket.

@JLeslie I’m sure it’s true some of the time. People do get into habits. But I’m not sure what portion of people are like that. I don’t think this is true for all. But I think it is true for a majority.

I think the more gay marriage gets out there, the less of a sweet damn people give about it. Massachusetts got the foot in the door in 2004. People (over)reacted, but after the dust settled all the gay marriage did nothing to change anything appreciably except a few hundred thousand gay couples were legally married.

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought: the Democrats are the conservative party. Barack Obama is the kind, gentle face of 21st century American conservatism. His coalition dumped the really loopy religious shit, kept the center-right economics, and is focusing on institutional preservation (the social safety net, etc.).

@bolwerk I’ll buy that to a certain extent. Barack Obama is the kind gentle face of the new deal. His opponents confuse the new deal and GI Bill socialism of the 40’s, 50’s, and 60’s with the laissez faire capitalism of the 10’s and 20’s.

@Imadethisupwithnoforethought: the New Deal and GI Bill were state capitalism. They weren’t socialism, which implies worker control of the means of production. The government made investments in the market, including loans and grants for school, to get what it wanted. It didn’t nationalize factories and hand them to the proletariat, which should be called bumblefuck socialism.