Is Brown The New Pink? Gay Bashing Gives Way to Know-Nothingness

East Carolina University political scientist Peter Francia says he doesn’t generally quote comedians.

But Francia, co-author of a provocative study on the gay marriage issue in rural America’s presidential voting in 2004, says funny man Bill Maher has the perfect description of the 2008 election: “Brown is the new pink.” In other words, a possible GOP strategy will be to scapegoat Hispanics with immigration issues in much the same way homosexuals were politically posterized in rural areas with Bush team posturing against gay marriage and Karl Rove-inspired hyperbole that made the debate over same-sex unions sound like a collective referendum on the Bible, country music, cold beer at college football games and the right to smoke cigarettes while fishing.

Francia, who exhaustively examined U.S. Census Bureau and voting data from 2004 for the gay marriage study, which Iowa Independent reported on earlier, said lessons learned from that work point to a likely use of anti-immigration rhetoric and initiatives from Republicans in a race for the White House that could become something of a desperate journey as the party faces an electorate increasingly disgruntled with Iraq policy and cellar-polling personalities.

“I think that’s certainly one issue that could be used to drive a wedge with residents in rural America,” Francia tells Iowa Independent.

Francia said this dynamic already can be seen in its early stages in the nominating process as it has put the “nail in the coffin” of John McCain, the U.S. senator from Arizona and a presidential candidate who has supported a compromise plan other Republicans attack as granting “amnesty.”

Francia suspects Republicans and Democrats will make starkly different and high-stakes political bets with immigration during the general election.

“My suspicion is that the Democrats will not want to alienate the Latino vote and may see this as an opportunity to build on the Latino vote in the 2008 election,” Francia said. “In 2006 the Democrats did considerably better with Latino voters than they did in 2004.”

Francia said he thinks Democrats will take a pro-immigration position and be willing to alienate rural Americans who have a different take.

“If that plays out the way I’m suggesting and the Republicans nominate somebody who is more anti-immigration, then you could see that wide gulf again between urban and rural America,” Francia said.

If you stack them on top of each other, these last elections, using some of the trend lines Francia is working with, you have the gay marriage debate in 2004 and the immigration issue in 2008. Are we really seeing the country become two nations: urban and rural? Are we going to be divided even more based on our zip codes?

“I think that’s very, very possible,” Francia said. “And that’s certainly not a position that every political scientist or social scientist holds. But it’s one that I certainly think is going on right now.”

He added, “There’s certainlty potential for 2008 to open up even wider gaps between urban and rural America.”

In 2008, because of the expected primacy of the Southwest in the presidential election, there could be a major backlash to any harsh GOP language on immigration, Francia said.

“A lot of Democrats might take pro-immigrant positions in the general election for that reason,” Francia said. “There’s potential for this issue to work in favor of Democrats by mobilizing the Latino vote and getting a greater percentage of Latinos voting in the Democratic column.”

The key with the Latino vote is to get Hispanics out to the polls as they vote in smaller percentages than other ethnic groups, says the East Carolina professor. That might be easier in 2008 than in the past, though.

“There’s a real energy in the Latino community on that issue, and I do think it is something that could backfire on Republicans,” Francia said.

Why does this politics of hate seem to work well in rural areas? There’s a great irony here. If you’re on the ground in rural areas, people are by and large terrifically nice. But yet in our politics we are susceptible to the hate-merchants on the radio, and these tactics on gays and immigrants seem to work in farm country. Why is that?

“I guess it has some resonance in rural America because rural America is less diverse,” Francia said. “I think maybe that exposure to people of different backgrounds gives you a different experience than what you might find in the rural communities, and that may help explain the different reaction you get.”

It was perhaps easier to predict how the gay marriage issue was going to play out than the immigration debate’s final impact in November 2008.

In rural areas, many people define themselves by their marriages. Getting their 25th and 50th wedding anniversary announcements printed in small newspapers like the one where I work — the Carroll (Iowa) Daily Times Herald — is a big event. Perhaps the attitude about gay marriage isn’t so much a hostility toward gays but rather a protectiveness of the perceived status of their marriage. To diminish the concept of Bible-based traditional marriage with images of gays kissing in courthouses takes something away from that 68-year-old couple in Iowa.

“I agree with a lot of what you just said there,” Francia said. “I think you’re really on to something. I would add that it’s not just the marriage but the traditional family. It’s not just being married, but you’re defined as well by how many kids you have and how your children are performing in school or on the football field, right?”

When thought of that way, Francia said, it’s not shocking to see gay marriage as being shocking in rural areas.

What remains to be seen is if the same tactics can be used to inspire enough anger in rural America over immigration to get voters in big sky country to look past a laundry list of other issues that are clearly troublesome for the GOP.