It doesn't come as a surprise to learn that gay marriage isn't a particularly lucrative issue for Republicans anymore. The combination of growing tolerance -- 44 percent support gay marriage, up from 42 percent in 2004 and 37 percent in 2005 -- and a financial crisis have put the issue on the back burner, even for conservatives. As time moves on, and baby boomers die off, I expect "pro-same sex marriage" to become the majority opinion (see this fantastic Onion parody for a sense of what that will look like).
Of course, among social issues, abortion is still very contentious, which makes this a completely baffling thing to say:
At the same time, the rise of the Tea Party movement, and the success that Republicans had last year in attacking Democratic candidates on economic issues, has pushed the debate over abortion and gay rights to the back burner.
This just isn't true. Next to spending cuts, the only other high-profile legislation we've seen from Republicans has been legislation to defund Planned Parenthood or create enormous obstacles to abortion access. Far from being on the back burner, abortion is front and center to the new GOP majority, which shouldn't come as a surprise: As I've been saying recently, these are the same social conservatives we've always known.
