Elite-led Mobilization and Gay Rights:The Myth of Mass Opinion Backlash

• In Event: Opposition in Action

Abstract

Media and scholastic accounts describe a strong public opinion backlash—a sharply negative and enduring opinion change—against attempts to advance gay rights. Academic research, however, increasingly questions backlash as an explanation for opposition to LGBT rights. We argue that what appears to be public opinion backlash against gay rights is more consistent with elite-led mobilization—a strategy used by anti-gay elites, primarily white evangelicals, seeking to prevent the full incorporation of LGBT Americans in the polity in order to achieve political objectives and increase their political power. We define and test the theory of Mass Opinion Backlash and the theory of Elite-Led Mobilization by employing a series of online and natural experiments, surrounding the Supreme Court rulings in Obergefell and Windsor, and President Obama’s position change on gay marriage. We also examine what is widely considered the textbook case of anti-gay backlash: the 2010 Iowa Judicial Retention Election. Taken together, the evidence shows that opposition to LGBT rights is a top down process incited by anti-gay elites rather than a bottom up process described by public opinion backlash.

Authors

• Benjamin Bishin, University of California, Riverside

• Thomas J. Hayes, University of Connecticut

• Matthew Incantalupo, Yeshiva University

• Charles Smith, University of California, Irvine