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 The Florida senator's staff have held quarterly meetings with the
Log Cabin Republicans "going back some time", their executive
director, Gregory Angelo, told Reuters. The meetings with the
advocacy group were to discuss legislation, issues and opportunities
to "partner on," Angelo said. Rubio's office declined to comment on
the meetings.
The discussions highlight the tricky electoral math for Republican
presidential aspirants like Rubio.
The Republican party will struggle to win the White House in 2016 if
it relies only on the support of socially conservative voters. At
the same time, presidential candidates will battle to win their
party's nomination without those voters, who often dominate state
primaries, or early voting contests.
That tension is starkly apparent on gay marriage. For years, staunch
opposition to gay marriage was a reliably safe strategy for
Republican candidates. No longer.
Facing an electorate that has sharply altered its views on the issue
since the turn of the century, even Rubio, who has long opposed gay
marriage, has softened his rhetoric, saying last week that he would
attend a gay wedding of a loved one.
And then in an interview with CBS's "Face the Nation" on Sunday he
said he believed "that sexual preference is something that people
are born with" and is not a choice for most people.
While those kinds of comments might help win votes in the general
election if he becomes the Republican nominee, they have the
potential to antagonize the conservative Republican base he needs to
win the primary, party activists said.
"To the right it sounds mealy mouthed, and to the left sounds
patronizing," said Martin Cothran, a senior policy analyst for the
socially conservative Family Foundation of Kentucky.
CHANGE IN ATTITUDES
Rubio risks alienating people like Bob Vander Plaats, the head of
The Family Leader in Iowa, whose endorsement is coveted by many
Republican presidential hopefuls each election cycle.
“There’s a lot to like about Marco Rubio,” Vander Plaats told
Reuters.
Vander Plaats said he wanted to hear specific strategies from the
Republican candidates on how to fight gay marriage. Any attempts to
straddle the issue would be a problem for him, he added.
While calling attendance at a gay wedding a personal decision, "I
probably wouldn't be going" to a same-sex ceremony, he said. "That
shows me endorsing and supporting something that I frankly really
disagree with."
Rubio, a Roman Catholic who often talks about his faith, has long
defined marriage as between a man and a woman and said that it
should be left to the states to regulate marriage. Asked whether his
comments over the past week represented a softening in his views, a
Rubio spokeswoman, Brooke Sammon, said his position was "clear and
well-established."
 The Log Cabin Republicans' Angelo said, however, that Rubio was "not
as adamantly opposed to all things LGBT as some of his statements
suggest." The staff meetings did not include Rubio, he said.
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The group has also met with Republican presidential contenders:
former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina earlier this year and
Senator Rand Paul and Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker, both in 2013.
Paul has sought to differentiate between traditional marriage and
civil contracts, while Walker said at the weekend he had attended a
wedding reception for a gay relative.
Efforts by Rubio, Paul and Walker to add nuance to their views on
gay marriage could play well with some younger Republicans, even if
it proves unpopular with social conservatives.
Among likely Republican primary voters, 68 percent oppose gay
marriage, according to Reuters/Ipsos data. By contrast, 49 percent
of Republicans aged 18 to 29 support same-sex marriage, while 41
percent oppose it and 10 percent are undecided.
The split is much higher among all Americans 18 to 29, regardless of
political affiliation. Seventy-eight percent support gay marriage,
with 15 percent opposed and 7 percent unsure.
Data from the Pew Research Center show how quickly that change has
come about: In 2003, 51 percent of people born in 1981 or later
supported gay marriage. By 2014, that number had jumped to 67
percent.
"It would be a very stupid move, in my opinion, politically for the
party or the candidates to hold onto" opposition to gay marriage,
said Pat Brady, a former chairman of the Illinois Republican party.
Brady stepped down from the post in 2013 in part because of his
stance on same sex marriage.
Even among many Democrats, attitudes have only recently changed.
Hillary Clinton herself, the Democratic front runner, has a history
of distancing herself from the issue. “For me, marriage had always
been a matter left to the states,” she said in an NPR interview last
year.
But this month, Clinton issued a statement saying she hopes the
Supreme Court rules in favor of same-sex marriage. On April 28, the
justices will hear oral arguments on whether there is a
constitutional right to gay marriage. A ruling is expected in June.
With that case pending, gay marriage is almost certain to come up an
event on Saturday hosted by the Iowa Faith & Freedom Coalition.
Among the speakers will be senators Rubio, Paul and Ted Cruz, as
well as Walker and other Republican hopefuls.
(Editing by Ross Colvin)
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