Bennett's Same-Sex Marriage Ban Push
Given our history of polygamy, we Utahns are sensitive to claims of matrimonial degradation. So it should come as no shock that Utah legislators are spearheading the movement to ban gay marriage in Washington D.C. The Senate effort is being led by Robert Bennett, Utah’s “junior” Senator (he is 6 feet 6 inches tall and 76 years old). And Representative Jason Chaffetz of Utah, along with Jim Jordan of Ohio, wrote the House’s resolution that expressed unease with gay marriage in the federal district.
But Utah’s cry of “one man, one woman” has more to it than my state’s past forays into alternative definitions of marriage. Like most issues on Capitol Hill, the opposition to gay marriage can be seen in the light of electoral politics.
This coming summer and fall, Senator Bennett faces reelection. Bennett might seem to have no problems—he has been in the Senate since 1993, and it is Democrats, not Republicans, who should fear recent electoral trends. But Utah is a unique state with unique rules.
Before entering the general election, Republicans in Utah face the May State Convention at which 3,500 of the party’s most faithful cast ballots for any of the competing candidates. If one candidate wins 60 percent of the ballots, the candidate wins the nomination. Otherwise, the top two candidates compete in a primary open only to registered Republicans. Utah is a staunchly Republican state—we have not voted for a Democratic president since 1964—but this system allows only the reddest of the red to name the Republican candidate.
And it’s exactly these ultra-red Republicans that have recently troubled Senator Bennett. The Club for Growth has attacked Bennett for his vote on the stimulus package, and other conservatives have criticized Bennett for his position on stem-cell research and the 2007 immigration bill. Sensing an opening, Bennett’s challengers, who are almost exclusively from the right, argue that Bennett has lost sight of true conservatism.
In the past months, Bennett has worked to strengthen his right flank. He opposed the auto bailout as well as several of Obama’s appointments, and unlike most congressional Democrats, he did not feel the need to stand at every pause in the President’s State of the Union address. Bennett’s February 2 initiative to end gay marriage in the federal district can be seen in the same light—an effort to appease the right wing of his party. Bennett has posted his effort to the front of his website, and he is pushing it heavily in Utah media.
Bennett has long been opposed to same sex marriage. But now with a right wing to out-maneuver and an election to win, it’s the perfect time to take the lead on crashing the gay party in the nation’s capital.