c. 2003 Religion News Service

WASHINGTON _ Although conservative and religious groups have kicked off a week of advocacy against same-sex unions, several political analysts said they doubt gay rights issues will play heavily in the 2004 presidential campaign.

“A conservative friend of mine said recently that whoever pushes the gay issue hardest tends to lose,” said E.J. Dionne Jr., a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and columnist for The Washington Post.

But supporters of traditional marriage are hoping to raise awareness about the divisive issue and win support for future consideration of legislation, including a constitutional amendment, that would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman as they mark Marriage Protection Week, Oct. 12-18.

In response, Universal Fellowship of Metropolitan Community Churches, a gay-oriented denomination that started in 1968 and whose clerics officiate at some 6,000 same-sex unions each year, declared Oct. 12-18 to be Marriage Equality Week.

“We felt it was important to make sure there was a positive, affirmative counter voice to the (anti-same-sex union) movement,” said spokesman Roman Cardenas.

In the wake of the landmark Supreme Court decision that overturned Texas’ anti-sodomy law earlier this year, conservative groups have reacted strongly against proposals to recognize civil unions among gays.

President Bush, who has spoken publicly against gay lifestyles, said last summer he was considering sending to Congress a proposed constitutional amendment that would restrict marriage to male-female partnerships.

The leading Democratic presidential candidates support gay rights, and several support gay couples in civil unions.

As Vermont’s governor, Howard Dean signed the first civil unions law in the United States. Rep. Dick Gephardt, whose gay daughter has been supporting him on the campaign trail, also supports civil unions. Sen. John Kerry is in favor of civil unions, and Sen. Joe Lieberman has co-sponsored anti-discrimination legislation for gays.

But Dionne said he expects the 2004 presidential candidates to confront same-sex issues “very gingerly.”

Dionne said movements like Marriage Protection Week _ and the liberal counter-movements like Marriage Equality Week _ represent fringe groups of the mainstream political parties. He said conservatives generally do not want to seem intolerant of gays, and people with progressive views usually have some “traditional” values and are cautious about supporting gay issues.

Bush is unlikely to make gay rights a key issue in his campaign because of the risk that he will alienate certain voters, Dionne said.

Political observer Charles Cook, who writes for the National Journal magazine and runs a private political analysis firm, The Cook Political Report, said civil unions and gay rights will be “luxury issues” in the 2004 campaign.

“The state of the economy, is the economy growing, (whether or not there are) sufficient new jobs, and how the war in Iraq will play out are more likely to be decisive than civil unions,” Cook said.

But the Rev. Lou Sheldon, chairman of the Traditional Values Coalition, one of Marriage Protection Week’s sponsors, said gay rights and civil unions legislation will “draw a line in the sand” for conservative Democrats in the upcoming election.

“I think this is going to be a strong dividing line for blacks, Catholics, Hispanics,” Sheldon said. “We will continually be referring to Marriage Protection Week throughout the year, and be calling for it again next year.”

Dionne said there were nuanced differences between gay “marriage” and “unions,” because of the religious connotations of marriage.

“For a significant group of social conservatives, this is a large and important issue,” he said. “They see it as a fight in society as a whole, and also in their churches.”

And while he doesn’t expect civil unions to be a prominent feature in next year’s presidential campaign, Dionne added that if “a group is passionate enough, even if it is a minority, it can put an issue on the agenda.”

At the same time, he cautioned, it will be difficult to get politicians to take up the issue with force.

“The biggest movement in attitudes in the past decade is issues about gays and lesbians, even among conservative people,” he said. “As people come out of the closet, people realize that they have a friend or a relative who is gay. The politics of gay rights are (complicated) because even more Americans know someone who is gay or lesbian.”

DEA END GABRIEL