David Lampo is the author of A Fundamental Freedom: Why Republicans, Conservatives, and Libertarians Should Support Gay Rights, and he serves on the national board of Log Cabin Republicans.

Since last year, the progress toward marriage equality has been nothing less than stunning. Nearly a year ago, the Supreme Court granted full federal recognition of married same-sex couples in declaring the federal Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) unconstitutional. In rapid succession since then, federal judges in 13 states have overturned their state’s respective bans on same sex unions. The latest was last week in Pennsylvania, when Judge John E. Jones III, a G. W. Bush appointee, overturned the ban, writing, “We are a better people than what these laws represent.” Because Republican Gov. Tom Corbett has declined to appeal the judge’s decision, Pennsylvania is now the 19th state to legalize same-sex marriage.

Federal judges have ruled against the bans as diverse as Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon Tennessee, Texas, Utah and Virginia. Gay marriage isn’t just for blue states anymore.


One of the most eloquent statements against the bans was issued earlier this month by Arkansas federal judge Chris Piazza, who argued that state’s ban violates the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. “Procreation is not a prerequisite in Arkansas for a marriage license,” he said. “Opposite-sex couples may choose not to have children or they may be infertile, and certainly we are beyond trying to protect the gene pool. A marriage license is a civil document and is not, nor can it be, based upon any particular faith. Same-sex couples are a morally disliked minority and the constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriages is driven by animus rather than a rational basis. This violates the U.S. Constitution.”

These cases, and the others that will likely follow, can lead to just one thing: another historic case about gay marriage before the Supreme Court, one that could establish a constitutional right to marriage equality, something few legal experts thought would happen so soon after last year’s DOMA case.

Public opinion on this issue is marching forward as well. According to a recent Washington Post/ABC News poll, 59 percent of Americans now support gay marriage. Only a third opposes it, nearly the reverse of the same poll 10 years ago. Forty percent of Republicans support it, and nearly 60 percent of Republicans between the ages of 18 and 29. Even 51 percent of white evangelicals under 35 support it, according to the Public Religion Research Institute.

And yet the Christian Right, or at least most of its self-proclaimed leaders, just won’t let it go. In mid-May, a group of them called the Conservative Action Project met outside Washington, D.C., to plot their next moves and devise their agenda to push back against the Republican leadership in Congress, whom they see as too soft on Obama and his agenda. Mainstream business groups like the Chamber of Commerce, which is keen to see a GOP takeover of the Senate after missed opportunities in 2010 and 2012, are siding with the leadership.

Although some of the attendees do not share the Conservative Action Project’s anti-gay agenda, most of them do. At the mid-May meeting, they reaffirmed their explicit opposition to same-sex marriage along with opposition to abortion and illegal immigration reform. Tony Perkins, head of the anti-gay Family Research Council, led a panel about restoring the “traditional family” as a Republican Party priority, as if almost universal opposition to gay rights has not been the party’s priority for several decades.

Polling consistently shows that independents, younger voters and women—all of whom used to routinely vote Republican in presidential contests—are now more often than not reliable Democrat voters. They are also pro-gay rights and same-sex marriage, especially younger voters. Unless Republicans begin to win some of them back with policies of social tolerance, they will simply no longer be in contention in presidential elections. Slavish devotion to right-wing social policies is the road to oblivion on the national stage.

So it’s time to stop letting the anti-gay tail wag the Republican dog. The Christian Right spokesmen’s pious pleas for tolerance for their anti-gay religious convictions will fall on deaf ears (and should) as long as they continue their own intolerance for those who practice different faiths or have different sexual orientations than they do.

Ending their tight grip on the party’s social agenda, and its 2016 platform, must be the top priority of those who wish to bring the Republican Party into the 21st century and make it appeal to more than just old white men.