Roger Wicker, left, and Dan Lungren have recently made efforts to ban gay marriage. | AP Photo, Reuters Hill GOP goes silent on gay marriage

Not so long ago, Congress was obsessed with banning gay marriage. Now: not so much.

It’s not that the issue has disappeared from the political landscape. It was front and center at the Republican presidential debate in New Hampshire last month, President Barack Obama is taking heat from his left flank for declining to support same-sex marriage and state legislatures across the country are still working to define marriage.


But a week after New York became the biggest state to legalize gay marriage, Capitol Hill is all but silent on the topic. Using the power of the federal government to ban gay marriage was all the rage in Republican circles from the mid-1990s right up through the 2006 midterm elections. But Republicans, more focused on spending, taxes and economic issues, are no longer anxious to tangle over spousal rights for same-sex couples.

“The only person who ever asks me about it is, I think, the media,” said freshman Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.). “When you got the highest unemployment, highest foreclosures and highest bankruptcy, social issues right now take a back seat to putting food on the table.”

The shift in emphasis to economic issues, the departure of iconic GOP cultural warriors such as Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) and Rick Santorum (R-Pa.), and poll results showing the American public has become more comfortable with same-sex unions have all combined to push the matter off the congressional plate.

There’s simply no percentage in making it a top priority — or even an item on the agenda — many Republicans say.

The only real congressional push on gay marriage in this Congress came earlier this year when Speaker John Boehner decided to have the office of general counsel battle to protect the mid-1990s Defense of Marriage Act in court, but he was forced into a corner on that issue because the administration informed Congress that it would no longer fight to uphold the law’s section defining marriage as between a man and a woman. Boehner hasn’t planned any legislative action on gay marriage.

On the Senate side, it’s been three years since Roger Wicker (R-Miss.) introduced the most recent constitutional amendment banning gay marriage. It mustered just 17 cosponsors, four of whom are no longer in the chamber. In the House, Reps. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.) and Paul Broun (R-Ga.) write their own proposed amendments every two years. Neither can get 10 percent of the House to sign on.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) barely talks about the issue these days. But in a floor speech in June 2006, he made clear not only that he opposed same-sex marriage but that the American public’s views on the matter would be expressed through consideration of a constitutional amendment banning it.

“I believe that traditional marriage, the union between a man and a woman, is the cornerstone of our society and the best possible foundation for a family. I believe that traditional marriage, the union between a man and a woman, should be the only form of marriage recognized by law. And I believe most Americans agree with me,” he said. “But if nothing else, they deserve a chance to be heard.”

Like Heller, many Republicans say the times have changed and that there’s no room for divisive social issues on the agenda as America hurdles toward a possible default on its debt.

“I think by far the No. 1 issue on the minds of Tennesseans is jobs and the economy, and right after that comes, ‘How are we going to stop spending money we don’t have in Washington,’” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), who is No. 3 in GOP leadership. “And then right after that is terror. And I think everything else is far behind.”

On top of that, some of the fresh crop of Republicans who arrived as a result of the 2010 tea-party surge would rather let the states deal with marriage — and their elections were driven more by pocketbook than social issues.

That dichotomy was evident in Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann’s answer to a question about New Hampshire’s same-sex marriage law during a presidential debate there in June.

Though Bachmann has supported a variety of legislative efforts to ban gay marriage and protect the Defense of Marriage Act, she said she wouldn’t try to repeal state laws allowing same-sex couples to wed.

“I do believe in self-determination for the states,” Bachmann said. “I’m running for the presidency of the United States. And I don’t see that it’s the role of a president to go into states and interfere with their state laws.”

It’s not just Republicans who are taking a different tack.

Democrats, bereft of their majority in the House and sensitive to issues that might arouse the Republican base, know that the time isn’t right for them to expand gay rights on the federal level. Where they took on high-profile efforts to end the military’s “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy and expand workplace rights for gays and lesbians in the last Congress, they now have no hope of moving forward on those hot-button social issues.

While House and Senate Democrats have introduced bills that would repeal the Defense of Marriage Act, but the party’s current message makes little room for social issues.