The Religious Right's Failed Gay-Marriage Backlash

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http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2014/03/the-religious-rights-failed-gay-marriage-backlash/284496/

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Frank Schubert tried to warn us. In 2012, after voters in four states took the side of gay marriage in ballot initiatives, Schubert, a consultant working for the National Organization for Marriage, was sure they would live to regret their choice.

"A raft of problems will appear that we'll be able to point to,” Schubert told me back then. "The truth of the matter is that same-sex marriage creates a host of conflicts with people who disagree with it. That's just a fact. You will start to see wedding photographers sued and fined, innkeepers put out of business, churches sued, small businesses sued. Then people will say, 'Whoa, I didn't think this was going to happen.'”

In a way, Schubert’s prediction has come to pass. But politically, it hasn’t gone down the way his side hoped.

Clashes like the ones he anticipated between venders claiming religious liberty and gay couples seeking services have indeed cropped up, though there have been only a handful and they’re not directly connected to the legality of gay marriage. But the backlash that gay-marriage opponents expected as a result does not appear to be materializing. Instead, in states like Arizona, Mississippi, and Kansas, lawmakers have largely backed down from attempts to protect religious dissenters after a national outcry branding the bills discriminatory.