Walker on gay rights issues: a primer

[Mr. Morden]

Here's a brief history, which covers the unusual line Walker has taken:

link

In June of last year, after the courts overturned Wisconsin's SSM ban, Walker declined to state his position on SSM:

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Yet, several months later, in a letter to an anti-SSM group:

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Yet he's also praised ENDA:

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etc.  Anyway, read the whole thing.

[retromike22]

Walker declines to state his opinion on a lot of things...

[ElectionsGuy]

He wants to be pro-gay marriage so bad but doesn't want to piss off the evangelical base.

[Absentee Voting Ghost of Ruin]

Another arrow in the "Walker is the candidate who doesn't answer questions" quiver...

[Likely Voter]

Another arrow in the "Walker is the candidate who doesn't answer questions" quiver...

There is a limit to how long he can keep up the Johnny Tightlips routine. Once he is announced candidate he will eventually be pinned down on all the big issues by the media or by his opponents in debates. Also if he wants to be the evangelical candidate he will have to talk about gays, you know Huck and Cruz and Santorum will.

[Blair]

Well there's two reasons. Either Walker is generally supportive of gay marriage, as some other republicans are, or he's just released that it's a losing battle.

The problem for the GOP is that if it passes SCOTUS this year, all that will happen is that the republicans will make noise about it being federal government blah blah blah and just stick in on the backburner.

[BaconBacon96]

He can see the winds of change, but will he pander to the evangelicals? An interesting question.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

He can see the winds of change, but will he pander to the evangelicals?

Yes.

Walker seems content to say "Regardless of my personal feelings, it's settled law, let's move on to the real issues." in the General, but in the primary, unless he wants to become somewhat toxic to the party base, he'll have to advocate for an amendment returning the decision of marriage to the states. Then he'll do a sort of awkward pivot to a "it's settled law" position after the primary.

[Landslide Lyndon]

How could this guy run three times for governor and yet hasn't declared his position in so many issues?
Aren't there any real journalists in Wisconsin to pin him down all those years?

[TJ in Oregon]

Thus far in Walker's campaign he's taken the standard conservative side of every social issue but has done so about as quietly as possible. During the debates last fall whenever abortion was mentioned, Walker took a very loose line on his views, even though it's quite well known he's quite conservative on the issue. On gay marriage, Walker had the state appeal the initial court ruling against the gay marriage ban and do so saying he was defending the state constitution. Once the SCOTUS declined to hear the appeal, he delicately withdrew and called it settled law. I suspect Walker is still against gay marriage but recognizes it as a lost cause and won't push it. I think he'd call it a distraction from what he considers to be the real issues. He will at some point in the campaign get asked some questions point blank about gay marriage and it will be interesting to see how he pivots to a point he prefers to discuss.

[pbrower2a]

If the Republicans lose the white evangelical vote, then that vote either goes to the Democrats or joins what may be a protest-driven Third Party. The former kills the GOP; the second practically ensures a Democratic Party victory analogous to LBJ in 1964. Democrats could win some 38-35-27 splits in some Southern states (and perhaps others) in statewide elections and get a mandate for huge change.

Take away animus on race or homosexuality, and the GOP has little but All for the Few economics. There may be well-heeled interests with desire for cheap labor, crony capitalism, and rapid depletion of natural resources -- but that will not be enough for a GOP victory. So it was in the 1930s and so it can be again.

All in all, the inevitable legalization of same-sex marriage seems likely to have the same effect as the legalization of interracial marriage; it just does not happen often enough to have an overpowering influence over peoples' lives, and when it does happen people find out why it happened and decide to accept it.