Elections have consequences

By Marco A. Roberts, chairman
Texas Conservative Liberty Forum

Barak Obama once famously said, “Elections have consequences.” In the wake of his electoral victory making him the 44th president of the United States, during an early meeting with Republican members of Congress, he was clarifying for anyone who was unclear that he “won,” and would act accordingly.

To Eric Cantor, the Republican House minority whip, he added, “So I think on that one, I trump you.” Had Obama seen the future, he might have picked different words.

But he was right: Elections do have consequences.

Since Nov. 5, from social media posts to official statements from Equality Texas, many in what is now called the “LGBTQIA2S+” (a term I reject as awkward at best, misleading at worst as evidenced below), have been vocal with fears about the consequences of the 2024 elections. So, what are the consequences of returning Donald Trump to the presidency and Republicans to Congress and our Texas Legislature?

For issues regarding sexual orientation, nothing significant will change. On the big one people often ask me about: Same-sex marriage is safe and sound. While public musings from Justice Clarence Thomas may spook some folks (and hearten others), the comforting (or hard) reality is that the path to overturning Obergefell v. Hodges would be an improbably long, difficult and legally complex one — even for a very popular and well-organized movement. And there is no such movement.

Public support for same-sex marriage has grown to a super-majority of more than 70 percent in more recent polls, from just around 30 percent 10 years ago. There has been a slight dip in that support in the last two years according to Statista. Setting aside the causes for that decline, support is still so strong at more than two-thirds of the public there is simply no one currently with the political appetite or wherewithal to take on a new case destined for the Supreme Court, let alone a constitutional amendment.

As for Trump, his position on same-sex marriage changed in similar fashion to that of Hillary Clinton, Barak Obama and Joe Biden. In his last direct public statement on it in 2016, he said he was “fine with it.”

Some partisans in the media will claim that Trump’s administrations favored treating “same-sex couples worse than opposite-sex married couples,” as LGBTQ Nation did last year. But they do so by defining as “worse” any standard application that negatively affects a gay couple even if it actually goes both ways (i.e. can potentially go against an opposite-sex couple), and by relying on self-serving speculative statements from Trump’s opponents, without regards to Trump’s own actual words and actions.

Who among us would fare well if our enemies had the final say of what we stand for? The fact is that in four years, the Trump administration did not take any action aimed specifically at gay people, except to extend Obama’s executive orders protecting them from unfair discrimination in federal contracting and to end the criminalization of homosexuality around the world.

Regarding issues of gender identity: These will be much more in contention.

In the areas of employment and housing, trans-identifying people can expect general public support. But when it comes to sports, medicine and expectations of privacy, the public mood has turned sour on the demands of the progressive left put forth on behalf of the transgender. A survey released this November by RMG Research published by the Napolitan News Service shows three quarters of those surveyed opposed relying on gender identity instead of biological sex as determinants for team sports segregation and privacy concerns.

This follows a 2023 Gallup poll showing that even Democratic voters are becoming less supportive of gender identity over biology in sports and privacy issues, even as Americans, as a whole, are becoming more supportive of people who identify as transgender.

Other polls show a similar decline in public support for the progressive left solutions on sports, medicine and privacy.  That may be why the New York Times reported in October that Democratic strategists “privately” conceded the Trump campaign ads on transgender issues were “taking a toll” on some of their races.

There are many bills around the issues of gender identity already introduced for consideration for the 89th regular session of the Texas Legislature convening in January.  Most won’t pass, but a few critical ones will, especially in regard to assistance for de-transitioners.

For those who have made lobbying trips to the capitol in the past, things will be palpably different in 2025.  As the man said, “Elections have consequences.”