Santorum’s notions hold promise for helping the marriage equality, the authors write. Santorum's case for gay marriage

Recent Supreme Court rulings have effectively opened a new front for the marriage equality movement: To end marriage discrimination across the country, advocates for marriage equality will have to wage dozens of campaigns in the (mostly) red states that don’t yet allow the freedom to marry. To win, the message about marriage must evolve to appeal to a more conservative audience.

The message of the marriage equality movement has already evolved from its initial focus on equal rights. In the early years, advocates emphasized that gays and lesbians should have the same hospital visitation privileges, tax benefits, and other rights and responsibilities afforded by the law to other couples.


That’s true. But a rights-based message doesn’t connect with many Americans who are ambivalent about the issue. Most people agree that same-sex couples should have the same legal rights as everyone else, but when they think about marriage, legal rights aren’t the first thing that comes to mind. People define marriage as a life-long commitment two people make to each other.

National research we conducted nearly a decade ago, after Massachusetts became the first state to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, found that people with conflicting feelings about the issue were concerned that same-sex relationships weren’t based on love and commitment, but on sex. Some worried that conferring the stature of the institution on less-serious relationships would dilute the meaning of marriage. They needed to know that gay and lesbian people sought to marry for the same reasons they did.

Fortunately, the movement changed its approach. Instead of leading with rights, marriage equality campaigns began telling stories about same-sex couples deeply committed to each other, raising families, and staying together through thick and thin.

The “love and commitment” theme appears to have worked. Most of the successful freedom to marry ballot campaigns in 2012 used some form of that message and, for the first time, they all won. Previous campaigns, which mainly employed rights-based messages, all lost at the ballot box.

Moving forward, the marriage equality message may need another update. The movement should continue emphasizing the love and commitment of the couples involved, and their need for equal rights under the law. But to get even more Americans on board, we should explore the value of highlighting the benefits to society at large.

Massachusetts, on the forefront of this issue, provides a useful lesson. To mark the fifth anniversary of marriage equality in the state, we searched for a message to celebrate the state’s distinction as the first in the nation to embrace marriage equality. We aimed to make it meaningful to more people, beyond the couples directly involved.

We found inspiration in an unlikely source: former Republican Senator and GOP presidential hopeful Rick Santorum. He gave a very useful speech to the conservative Heritage Foundation about the benefits of marriage to society. “The essence of marriage is selflessness in a self-centered society,” he said. “Government must promote marriage as a fundamental societal benefit.”

Santorum went on to argue that government should therefore limit marriage to straight couples. We took Santorum’s messages about marriage and inverted his logic: If the government allows more people to marry, including gays and lesbians, isn’t that “promoting” marriage and making society stronger?

We then tested a series of Santorum-inspired messages in a poll of Massachusetts voters conducted for an LGBT advocacy group. (Before you write off results from “liberal” Massachusetts: Remember, this state elected Republicans Mitt Romney and Scott Brown. And when the state’s Supreme Judicial Court first ended marriage discrimination, 50 percent of voters approved of the ruling, according to the Boston Globe. That’s actually behind where the country is now: 56 percent of voters approved of the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to strike down the Defense of Marriage Act, according to the Washington Post.)

The results were impressive: Seventy-four percent of voters agreed that when gays and lesbians are allowed to marry, “society is stronger because more couples are taking responsibility for each other and making long-term commitments.” Sixty-seven percent agreed that “marriage equality promotes the common good by encouraging more people to build families and raise children.”

Roughly half of those who had opposed marriage equality agreed with these messages. In other words, messages about values-based benefits to society at large can broaden the appeal of marriage equality well beyond those who already support it.

More in-depth research is clearly in order, but Santorum’s notions about marriage and society hold promise for helping the marriage equality movement change hearts and minds in more conservative parts of America. Thanks, Rick!

Doug Hattaway is president of, and Alex Cole a vice president of, Hattaway Communications. Both have worked on marriage equality issues for nearly a decade.