While some D.C. advocacy groups think that this year's election results made a definite negative statement on the status of gay marriage in the United States, some AU professors disagree.
Voters in 11 states passed ballot measures Nov. 2 to ban same-sex marriage within their states, and President George W. Bush said earlier this year that he favors a constitutional ban on gay marriage, the Federal Marriage Amendment, which died in Congress this summer. His opponent, Sen. John Kerry, also opposed gay marriage but did not endorse a constitutional amendment.
The leaders of some gay-rights groups said that their situation has worsened since the election.
"We lost. Not only did we lose our fight against 11 anti-gay ballot questions, we lost in the broader social and political landscape of America," said Patrick Guerriero, president of the Log Cabin Republicans, in a Nov. 8 statement.
Guerriero's group, which represents gay Republicans, endorsed Bush when he ran for president in 2000 but did not support him this year.
Others, including AU students, were also saddened by the votes for the bans.
"[I felt] very disappointed," said Eric Jost, a junior in the College of Arts and Sciences who organized a coming-out workshop for the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Resource Center. "I don't know if I was surprised because this is such a divisive issue ... [except] in places like Oregon where there was such promise earlier in the year."
The Alliance for Marriage, a group that supports Bush and opposes gay marriage, said that the way Americans voted indicated the country's overall sentiment.
"Americans demonstrated broad-based strength and momentum for our Federal Marriage Amendment - strength and momentum that transcends all racial, cultural, and religious boundary lines," Alliance for Marriage President Matt Daniels said in a statement. "Among African-American voters in Ohio alone - a core Democratic voting group - President Bush nearly doubled his support over the 2000 election, from 9 to 16 percent."
However, School of Communication professor Leonard Steinhorn, who teaches public communication classes like PR and the Presidency, said the election results may send the wrong message to America.
"The religious-conservative base was the driving force of the election, having been motivated by Bush's opposition to gay marriage," Steinhorn said. "But the religious base is not the majority."
Most gay Americans would be happy with receiving rights to either legal marriage or civil unions, which would be different but still give same-sex couples legal rights, he said.
"It is a mistake to translate the gay marriage issue into moving back in time on gay rights," Steinhorn said. "It is important to keep things in perspective. Ten years ago homosexuals were dealing with intolerance everywhere, and no Republican president would have been willing to address civil unions, but Bush has said he could."
Jost, the student, also talked about the difference between tolerance of same-sex couples and gay marriage.
"I think that most people are very accepting of gay couples in general, but I think the word 'marriage' is the line a lot of people draw in terms of legal rights of homosexual couples," he said.
Anthropology professor William Leap agreed with Steinhorn that the election results do not mean a backwards move for gay rights.
"The election results do not mean we are moving forward or backward on gay issues," he said. "The issue of gay marriage is not a barometer of anything in the gay struggle."
Leap believes the idea of same-sex marriage is not necessarily paramount to average gay Americans.
"The idea of gay marriage is being pushed by well-meaning progressives, but what average rank-and-file gays are concerned about is job security, health care, paying their bills - which is why gay America, in part, voted for Bush," he said.
The fight for marriage rights is mostly being pushed by gay people who are affluent and white, Leap said.
"If you look at the statistics surrounding gay marriage - who is getting married and who is adopting - it is predominantly privileged whites," he said. "Those who are in the gay leadership are of that very demographic, and it is them, I would argue, who are making gay marriage the gay issue."
Jost also spoke about the same-sex marriage issue within the gay community.
"There are a lot of gay people who feel we shouldn't be fighting for marriage when there aren't a lot of states that have even passed anti-discrimination acts, let alone on a national level," Jost said.
The 2004 gay vote for Bush was 23 percent, according to the Washington Blade, a gay-oriented newspaper. That percentage was the same Bush received in 2000, as well as Sen. Bob Dole in 1996.
