The “Gang of Eight” immigration reform bill introduced in mid-April emerged as the first opportunity for a bipartisan agreement on what has always been a contentious issue.
The bill targeted the farm worker industry, pleasing both workers and employers with provisions that would allow 112,000 three-year visas to be issued each year. To the delight of workers, it also included language for three-step pay increases over that time, setting a high and a low for the pay scale.
“Agricultural immigration issues are extraordinarily complicated,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) told the High Plains Journal. “That farmers and workers have come together to back this consensus proposal is an achievement that only weeks ago didn’t seem possible.”
And then along came gay marriage.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) has indicated he’ll move ahead to add amendments to the bill that would extend Green Card extension privileges currently awarded to married couples to those with same-sex partners.
His show of support for the gay community was quickly countered by Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), who claimed the amendment would stop the immigration bill dead in its tracks.
“There’s a reason this language wasn’t included in the Gang of Eight’s bill: It’s a deal-breaker for most Republicans,” Flake told the New York Times. “Finding consensus on immigration legislation is tough enough without opening the bill up to social issues.”
Republicans have aligned themselves, for the most part, with the movement against same-sex marriage. In Illinois GOP chairman Pat Brady resigned after he shifted to favor same-sex marriage, saying he lost the support of the Republican Central Committee because of his new support for marriage equality.
In 2012, the Republican party approved a ban on same-sex marriage in its national party platform.
One step forward, two steps back
Sen. Leahy’s move was met with applause by same-sex marriage advocates, which now not only include “fringe” activist groups but the majority of Americans. A March Washington Post/ABC poll indicated 58 of Americans believed that gay marriage should be legal — and just 38 percent said it should be illegal.
Public opinion reflected in the poll has changed drastically in the last 10 years. In 2003, a Washington Post/ABC poll indicated 37 percent of Americans favored gay marriage, compared with 55 percent who did not.
Yet, as state battles show, same-sex marriage is still a contentious political issue.
On Tuesday, Delaware lawmakers voted in favor of legalizing gay marriage in the state, marking a victory for same-sex couples and another state precedent in the fight for civil rights.
Days prior, Rhode Island’s Governor Lincoln Chafee, an Independent, signed a bill allowing gay marriage in the state of 1 million residents.
A bill regarding same-sex marriage legalization is pending in Minnesota, with a vote in the House expected on Thursday. In November, Minnesota residents voted down a referendum that would have created a constitutional ban on same-sex marriage — making it the first state to vote down such an amendment. While a victory for those in favor of same-sex marriage, the issue isn’t cut-and-dry in the state. Both sides of the issue are fervently lobbying in the lead-up to the vote.
It’s this political climate throughout the nation that now has some worried that the once-attainable immigration reform package will go down the path of partisanship over a social issue the nation is not yet united on.
“This immigration bill is difficult enough as it is,” Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a member of the “Gang of Eight,” told Hugh Hewitt, a conservative radio host. “If that issue is injected into the bill, this bill will fail. I will not have the support. It will not have my support.”
What happens without evangelical support?
In January, the broader evangelical community came together to rein in their political conservative base and send a message of compassion in regard to the immigration debate. Their voice of support was monumental in the movement, as they not only belong to the Republican base, but they serve as a moral sounding board.
A CBS poll taken in 2012 indicated that 50 percent of voters in the Republican presidential primary belonged to the evangelical, born-again Christian community.
“We’re starting with the dignity of every being — that’s fundamental — and the importance of family,” National Association of Evangelicals (NAE) Vice President of Government Relations Galen Carey said in a January interview with Mint Press News.
That sentiment was echoed by Focus on the Family’s Tom Minnery, senior vice president of public policy.
“Our mission is to help families thrive and it’s important for families that are caught up in the immigration problems to be able to stay intact,” Minnery told Mint Press News in January. “Current law is such a mess that even those who get in line have a tough time keeping their families together.”
At the time evangelicals were emerging as immigration reform leaders, the debate wasn’t focused on the issue of what would — and should — happen in regard to families that include same-sex couples. The NAE, along with Focus on the Family, are opposed to same-sex marriage legalization.
Neither organization has publicly addressed the issue at hand, although it presumably would create a rift in support, based on their beliefs. A call to Focus on the Family was not immediately returned.