Lawmakers' endorsement moments are scripted to be public — but not too public. The gay-marriage backer's playbook

There’s clearly a new playbook for senators just now coming out for gay marriage: quietly post something on Facebook, slip it into your Tumblr feed or release a statement to friendly media outlets.

What most lawmakers are not doing is talking for the cameras.


In the past month, 11 senators have endorsed gay marriage, providing a nearly daily storyline of increased support for marriage equality. Lawmakers say they’ve “prayed,” “evolved,” discovered gay children to stand behind or had epiphanies following an illness.

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“It’s sort of been like flower-of-the-month club,” said LGBT activist David Mixner.

Sen. Bill Nelson (D-Fla.) is the latest, sending a statement Thursday to the Tampa Bay Times.

“Simply put, if The Lord made homosexuals as well as heterosexuals, why should I discriminate against their civil marriage? I shouldn’t, and I won’t,” Nelson said.

But for all the hoopla over their announcements, combined with media coverage of last month’s Supreme Court arguments on the issue, these moments are scripted to be public — but not too public.

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There’s little footage available for opponents to use in the next campaign or live interviews with reporters who might ask difficult or inconvenient questions. The fact that so many of these announcements are coming from lawmakers who are retiring or just reelected helps make it even safer for them to take a stand.

“It seems there is a determination for not doing this on camera, but in fairness, the TV media’s appetite for the story of senators depends on an unusual angle — like Sen. [Rob] Portman’s,” said Hilary Rosen, a Democratic strategist and gay rights advocate.

“Also, this is an issue that appeals to the under 35 crowd,” Rosen added. “And they mostly get their news from social media, not TV.”

( WATCH: Rob Portman backs gay marriage)

Sticking with Facebook posts or issuing a simple statement can also help avoid freelancing on live television and going beyond the language they previously wrote or approved.

“I think almost everyone is posturing right now, where they’re realizing big, sweeping societal change has occurred,” said Rick Wilson, a Florida-based Republican strategist. “They’re looking for language that’s fairly anodyne, that doesn’t lock them into any sweeping policy prescription.”

That explains all of the growth metaphors like “evolving,” said Kathryn Olson, an expert in political communication at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

“They’re trying to avoid the major indictment of politicians, which is that, ‘You are a flip-flopper,’ or ‘You are not true to your convictions,’” Olson said.

The rush among lawmakers to endorse gay marriage has followed a national trend toward greater tolerance. Recent public surveys show that more than 50 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage.

But a number of states lag behind the national cultural shift, so it’s news when politicians from places like Missouri or Alaska endorse gay marriage. A California Democrat running statewide has little to fear at the ballot box.

Missouri Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill might not have considered endorsing gay marriage before her 2012 reelection bid, but she won another term after her Republican opponent suggested women can choose whether to get pregnant during rape. With plenty of time before 2018, she made the switch.

Nevertheless, McCaskill quietly made her announcement via her Tumblr page on a Sunday night.

“Don’t get me wrong — anyone from a conservative state who endorses marriage equality is courageous,” said Mixner. “But McCaskill is not up for another six years. By then, she’ll be able to be a bridesmaid in a gay union, and no one will care.”

( POLITICO Roundtable: How GOP really wants SCOTUS to rule on gay marriage)

The next day, March 25, three more Democrats turned.

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner heralded his “evolved” support on his Facebook page. West Virginia Sen. Jay Rockefeller, who isn’t running for reelection, issued a statement declaring his new stance as the result of a “process.” And Alaska Sen. Mark Begich issued a statement to Buzzfeed.

March 26 saw the first of two days of Supreme Court arguments on gay marriage: challenges to California’s Prop. 8, the ballot initiative that limits marriage to unions between a man and woman, and the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act. That day also saw another Facebook post, this time from Montana Democratic Sen. Jon Tester.

Like McCaskill, Tester was reelected from a red state last November and has plenty of time before he faces voters again.

“I’m proud to support marriage equality, because no one should be able to tell a Montanan or any American who they can love and who they can marry,” Tester wrote.

Delaware Sen. Tom Carper was another Facebook poster, announcing Tuesday that his “prayers and conversations with my family and countless friends and Delawareans” led him to support gay marriage. North Carolina Sen. Kay Hagan, who issued a Facebook statement last month, also cited prayer.

Whatever the venue, Wilson, the Florida strategist, said that Democrats haven’t been as “bold” as GOP Sens. Rob Portman of Ohio and Mark Kirk of Illinois.

Portman was strongly against gay marriage until his college-age son informed him two years ago that he is gay . He was a co-sponsor of DOMA and in 1999 voted for a measure prohibiting same-sex couples in Washington from adopting children.

But after consulting his church and his son, Portman said he came to see the issue from the perspective of a father who wants his son “to have the same opportunities that his brother and sister would have,” he wrote in a Columbus Dispatch op-ed March 15.

Kirk this week became the second Senate Republican to announce that he supports gay marriage. Kirk, who has been recovering from a stroke, said that when he climbed the Capitol steps at the inauguration in January, “I promised myself that I would return to the Senate with an open mind and greater respect for others.”

So who’s next?

After Begich stated his position, his Republican Alaska colleague, Lisa Murkowski, allowed that her views are still evolving.

New York Magazine this week predicts that Murkowski will be among the next five Republicans to endorse gay marriage. And Louisiana Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu — who, like Begich, is up for reelection in 2014 — isn’t ruling it out. “I’m just going to continue to talk to the people of my state,” she said.