Dr. Matthew Incantalupo, assistant professor of political science at Yeshiva University, has coauthored Elite-Led Mobilization and Gay Rights (University of Michigan Press) with Dr. Benjamin George Bishin (University of California, Riverside), Dr. Thomas J. Hayes (University of Connecticut) and Dr. Charles Anthony Smith (University of California, Irvine). From the Publisher:

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. Elite-Led Mobilization and Gay Rights argues 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 political power. This book defines and tests the theory of Mass Opinion Backlash and develops and tests the theory of Elite-Led Mobilization by employing a series of online and natural experiments, surrounding the U.S. Supreme Court rulings in Obergefell v. Hodges and United States v. Windsor, and President Obama’s position change on gay marriage. To evaluate these theories, the authors employ extensive survey, voting behavior, and campaign finance data, and examine the history of the LGBT movement and its opposition by religious conservatives, from the Lavender Scare to the campaign against Trans Rights in the defeat of Houston’s 2015 HERO ordinance. Their evidence shows that opposition to LGBT rights is a top-down process incited by anti-gay elites rather than a bottom-up reaction described by public opinion backlash.

YU News caught up Dr. Incantalupo to talk about the book and the significance of its findings to those fighting to achieve equality.

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YU News Good to hear you and good to see this success in the publication of the book. Matthew Incantalupo: Thank you. We’re very proud of it. YU News How long did you say you had been working on it? Incantalupo I think our first conversations about this project date to the spring of 2013. YU News How did you meet your co-authors? Incantalupo Ben (Bishin) and Tony (Smith) were both professors at the University of Miami, where I was an undergrad. They were responsible for my education in political science, especially Ben. I distinctly remember him saying, “You’re really good at this and you could actually go to school for this if if that’s something you are interested in.” He's been incredible friend and mentor to me for almost 20 years. Tom (Hayes), the fourth writer, was Ben’s student at the University of California Riverside, where Ben works, and now is a professor at the University of Connecticut. YU News What makes the argument of this book an important argument to make today? Because it seems to me what you’re saying is that much of what the public perceives as a backlash against peop0le on the margins fighting for their rights is seen as coming from the bottom up, from a simmering pot of resentment. But you’re arguing something very different, right? Incantalupo That’s right. We’re making the top-down argument. You’re absolutely right to say that the conventional wisdom is that a lot of this is bottom-up, what we called a grassroots process of mass opinion change: just lots of people seeing the status quo change or seeing the threat of change to the status quo and saying I don’t like it and I'm going to do something about it. And what we see is not that at all, and I think that the reason that this is important and interesting is that it gets at a kind of fundamental tension in American politics. American politics is based on two principles, among others, that are sometimes in conflict with one another: a strong emphasis on individual rights and freedom and equality versus a tradition of majority rule. So, what do you do when extending rights or freedoms—giving equality—to some group that is unpopular? We saw that play out during the civil rights movement. Today, we forget that segregation was popular. Getting equality in schooling was a minority-held opinion at the time of the Brown v. Board of Education decision. It’s a tension that is never going to go away in American politics, insofar as you have majority rule but are also charged with treating people equally. Those two values are at odds with one another. For example, in the 1990s and early 2000s, we had a group of people asking for marriage equality, demanding equality in the face of a majority opposed giving it to them. The question for political practitioners or even just observers of democratic theory is, How can a minority group achieve equality in a majoritarian setting? Our basic answer is, They can get it by demanding it. The title of the final chapter of our book is Organize, Mobilize, Legislate, and Litigate. Groups looking to get equality should not worry about being set back in the “court of public opinion.” They are not going to make enemies by making progress, and by progress, I mean getting the policies that they want. YU News But you can’t deny that there is great resistance among the people on certain issues, so what is the connection between the top-down and the bottom-up? The resistance at the bottom has to come from somewhere. Incantalupo You know, the literature on public opinion is pretty clear, or at least it is pretty insistent that opinions flow from elites to masses and that people follow their opinion leaders on a lot of issues. We do a really deep dive into Iowa and the politics surrounding the Iowa judicial recall elections. And it’s very clear that there were these organized religious groups that instructed clergy members what to say about the judicial recall elections, instructing them, in one video, to encourage their congregants to turn the ballot over because the the judicial questions were on the backside of the ballot. When you have two sides of a ballot, you’re often worried that people would just fill out one side and neglect the back, and so they were imploring people to actually turn the ballot over and make sure that they answered the questions. As with the vote on the judicial retention question, we saw a similar pattern with the campaign donations. If something were a backlash or a bottom-up mass-level event, we would see lots of little donations on this issue. With the Iowa judicial retention elections, the money came from like half a dozen donors making huge donations, indicating that it really was a top-down process. YU News Matthew, thank you for taking the time to talk about your book. Best of luck. Incantalupo It was a pleasure.