The GOP is doing something once unheard of. They're staying quiet on gay rights. | AP Photos GOP avoids gay marriage issue

When Democrats announced that their 2012 platform would include a historic first — gay marriage written in as a plank — the reaction from mainstream Republicans was near silence.

There were no statements blasted out from Mitt Romney’s campaign. The same was true for the Republican National Committee. Romney has yet to address the fact.


The pushback came largely from social conservatives and evangelicals, who pledged to make same-sex unions an issue going forward and insisted the stand will hurt Democrats.

( PHOTOS: 20 gay rights milestones)

But the comparative quiet from party leaders would have been unimaginable even four years ago, when public opinion hadn’t yet shifted so rapidly on a signature social issue. And it marks a dramatic change among some of the top Republican donors and opinion-makers, who are supporting same-sex marriage in state-based gay legislative and legal fights, even as the official GOP platform will remain centered on traditional marriage.

“Most Republican Party leaders seem to have lost the stomach for this fight,” said Dan Schnur of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at the University of Southern California. “Some of that results (from) the number of large-scale donors who support same-sex marriage, some of it’s a result in an increasing number of party leaders who support same-sex marriage, and a lot of it is public opinion polling which shows a shift in the way voters feel about same-sex marriage,” he added.

It is, Schnur said, “still an issue that motivates the party base, but it motivates the Democratic base, too.”

It was just eight years ago that Republicans, looking to turn out their base, put gay marriage bans on ballots in key states. The measure in Ohio is widely credited with boosting turnout that benefited President George W. Bush’s reelection effort.

And it was just three years ago that a Maine law allowing same-sex marriage was repealed by voters.

But in recent years, polling and ballot initiatives have shown the American public coming closer to a rough consensus on the issue.

In a Pew Poll released last week, the Democratic base has moved significantly on the issue since President Barack Obama announced his support of same-sex marriage, with 65 percent now backing it — making it an easy call for the Democratic convention. Among Republicans, Pew showed less movement, with 70 percent opposed to gay marriage. But equally significant was the figure showing 51 percent of independents supporting gay marriage, along with 48 percent of voters overall, compared to 44 percent against.

“I think that they [the right] know that this issue doesn’t have the same potency that it had in 2004,” said Christopher Barron, co-founder of the gay group GOProud. “The gay marriage issue for the anti-gay marriage right has always been one of those issues of diminishing returns, and it’s gotten to the point now where it’s often a loser.”

“If you’re talking about it, you’re not talking about what people care about,” he added.

When asked about Romney’s view on gay marriage, his campaign reiterated in a statement that he believes marriage is between a man and a woman. But Romney has focused his message almost entirely on the economy and has done everything he can to avoid veering off it on the stump, with the exception of issues that he feels are parallel, such as Obama’s health care legislation.

And while his position on the issue is clear, it’s at odds with the one held by some of his prominent bundlers — including Paul Singer, Cliff Asness and Dan Loeb.

They, along with former RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, are helping to fund state-based initiatives fighting for gay marriage this year in states like Maine and Washington state.

Such victories on a statewide ballot would be a first for the gay marriage movement, and so far that group of backers — which helped fund the successful legislative effort on same-sex marriage in New York State in 2011 — is financing heavy portions of the fight.

Since talking about the issue in the heat of the primaries, Romney has largely steered clear of it. He referenced defending traditional marriage in his recent NAACP speech, to the delight of social conservatives with whom he met in Denver last week, but it’s not a frequent talking point.

There is no question that the RNC platform will codify traditional marriage, as a spokeswoman affirmed last week.

“The Republican Party is committed to the timeless, foundational values of family, traditional marriage and life,” RNC spokeswoman Kirsten Kukowski said. “Governor Romney and the Party’s platform are clear: Marriage is between a man and a woman.”

Barron expressed concern that the issue might be raised during the party’s convention in Tampa by activists who want to enshrine tougher language as a counterweight to the Democrats: “I fully expect the GOP platform to be a nightmare. I think the GOP platform will have really terrible language in there about marriage equality and civil unions.”

He was dismissive of the language on the Democratic side as largely symbolic, because Obama has said marriage remains a state issue, adding: “The same way the gay left will get thrown a bone with their platform, the anti-marriage right will get thrown a bone.”

A spokesman for Virginia Gov. Bob McDonnell, who is spearheading the GOP’s platform committee, would say only that “The Republican Party is committed to the timeless foundational values of family, traditional marriage and life. The party’s platform will reflect those principles.”

The muted reaction from the official GOP machinery is in stark contrast to current brouhaha about Chick-fil-A, a controversy that has been made for headlines and has clearly resonated with the party’s base, after the company’s owner came under fire for speaking against gay marriage.

Conservative stalwarts like Mike Huckabee, Sarah Palin and Rick Santorum have all eaten sandwiches in solidarity after mayors like Rahm Emanuel in Chicago and Tom Menino in Boston advocated banning the eateries in their cities.

Weekly Standard editor Bill Kristol tried to lure Romney toward the controversy with a blog post Thursday.

“Mitt munching on a Chick-fil-A sandwich … the right thing to do, and politically smart, too,” Kristol wrote of Romney’s visit to Colorado. “And tasty. Is it too much to hope for?” That was followed by: “Update: Didn’t happen.”

Romney, asked about the Chick-fil-A flap on Friday, said it is not a part of his campaign and avoided saying anything specific on the controversy.

Same-sex marriage opponents warned that Romney sidesteps the issue at his political peril.

“It would be rather unwise politically for the GOP to ignore the Chick-fil-A vote,” said conservative strategist Greg Mueller, who represents the National Organization for Marriage.

NOM president Brian Brown, in an interview with POLITICO, was more forceful: “Paul Singer can give his money to whoever he wants. It doesn’t mean Romney supports same sex marriage. “ He added, “I think you’ll be hearing more, especially as the convention comes up. I think this is a gift for the Republican Party.”

Brown said that for all the focus on the right, he thinks same-sex marriage will prove problematic for Obama among Hispanic voters and black pastors, key constituencies for the president. Indeed, concern about reactions among those voters had weighed on Democrats’ minds in terms of Obama’s public position, but ultimately they believe black voters will support the president regardless of this issue.

Faith and Freedom Coalition President Ralph Reed acknowledged the response to the Democratic embrace of gay marriage in the 2012 platform has been a general shrug in terms of the headlines.

“Other than one press call and that was from the Christian Post, I didn’t get a single media call about it,” he said, adding, “We did not even send out a news release.”

He added, “I don’t think that that reflects a lack of interest or conviction in the issue. But I do think that the platform committee action was, you know, kind of viewed as of a piece with Obama’s flip-flop and my sense is that the Obama flip-flop was pretty fully litigated.”

Gay marriage will play out with more resonance as an electoral issue in some of the closer Senate contests, Reed predicted.

But he added that Romney should not ignore it.

“I would encourage him to [state his position] … at every opportunity,” he said.