LGBT News Did Gay Marriage Bans Help Bush Win in 2004?

I had an instructor in college who flat out told us that that was indeed his ticket to reelection. So many people were against same-sex marriage back then and while he did lose the popular vote, he won the electoral college vote.

 

Bush really mobilized support from evangelicals in 2004, from what I read. There was a lot of excitement and enthusiasm by evangelicals similar to the excitement of college students when Obama was running in '08.

 

This.

Bush was excellent in 2004 getting people to get out and vote.

 

The answer is YES. The only thing that determined that election was Ohio. I mean if Ohio were to have flipped John Kerry would have won.

 

I think it did help him win, at least the second time around. I remember feeling a strong sense of conservatism at that time. In addition, it seemed the entire election revolved around family "values." And of course, those "values" meant heterosexual families only. Bush pandered to the far-right Christians at a time before they were revealed for the bigots they were. I was actually closeted during that era and distinctly recall feeling like I would never EVER be able to live openly as a gay guy...now look where we're at...legalizing gay marriage.

 

I remember feeling that too during the Bush years. This was before I knew I was gay but he was good at inspiring that sense of conservatism.

 

OP, I am glad you raised this topic because I actually think about this from time-to-time. I actually graduated HS in 2004 and like I said above, I just felt society was very anti-gay at that time. I guess it didn't help that I was in a religious environment where conversion therapy was discussed among preachers and it just seemed that Bush really fed into the crowd that promoted "values" voters. I actually thought something was seriously wrong with me for being gay.

I was extremely nervous this past election as I thought Romney would win and we'd end up right back where we were.