Uncompromising Positions: God, Sex, and the U.S. House of Representatives

Appendix B: Variable Specification, Coding, and Description

195 DEPENDENT VARIABLES My analysis measures the impact of various phenomena on individual legislator support for progressive gay rights policy, progressive reproductive policy, and traditionalistic prayer policy. Logit or ordered logit models are run for each issue in Congress from 103rd to the 107th (1993–2002). The dependent variables are additive indices derived from roll call votes and sponsorship/ cosponsorship decisions. I selected relevant legislation after consultation with the Congressional Record. To calculate the roll call indices for the gay rights and reproductive policy models, I gave each legislator a score of +1 for each vote in support of progressive sexuality (supporting gay issues and permissive reproductive policy), –1 for each vote supporting religious traditionalism, and a zero for each missed vote or “present” vote. To calculate the sponsorship/cosponsorship indices , I gave legislators a score of +1 for each bill they sponsored or cosponsored that advocated gay rights or permissive reproductive policy and 0 for every time they did not. High scores indicate high levels of support for progressive sexuality. I include sponsorship and cosponsorship items in the analyses if the legislation in question advanced gay rights or progressive reproductive policy and had at least forty-nine cosponsors. To calculate the school prayer voting indices, I gave each legislator a score of +1 for each vote in support of school prayer, Appendix B Variable Specification, Coding, and Description 196 Appendix B –1 for each vote opposing school prayer, and a zero for each missed vote and “present” vote. To calculate the sponsorship/cosponsorship indices, I gave legislators a score of +1 for each piece of legislation they sponsored or cosponsored that advocated school prayer and a zero for every time they did not. In this case, high scores indicate high levels of support for religious traditionalism . Again, I include sponsorship and cosponsorship items in the analyses if the legislation in question advanced school prayer and had at least forty-nine cosponsors. Score range varies by Congress. To facilitate the logit and ordered logit analysis, I collapsed the range of scores. The loss of fine-grained variation was regrettable but inevitable. When the categories were not collapsed an analytical problem emerged because some of the categories were too small for meaningful analysis . The following is a list of index components. GAY ISSUES 103rd Congress (1993–1994) Votes H.Amdt. 188, H.R. 2492, roll no. 313 Y = –1, N = +1, P/NV = 0 H.Amdt. 316, H.R. 2401, roll no. 460 Y = +1, N = –1, P/NV = 0 H.Amdt. 317, H.R. 2401, roll no. 461 Y = –1, N = +1, P/NV = 0 H.Amdt. 318, H.R. 2401, roll no. 462 Y = –1, N = +1, P/NV = 0 H.Amdt. 751, H.R. 4649, roll no. 321 Y = –1, N = +1, P/NV = 0 H.Amdt. 490, H.R. 6, roll no. 92 Y = +1, N = –1, P/NV = 0 Sponsorship/Cosponsorship H.R. 431, Civil Rights Act of 1993 S/C = +1, not S/C = 0 H.R. 4636, Employment Non- S/C = +1, not S/C = 0 Discrimination Act of 1994 104th Congress (1995–1996) Votes H.Amdt. 890, H.R. 2546, roll no. 759 Y = –1, N = +1, P/NV = 0 H.Amdt. 1286, H.R. 3396, roll no. 314 Y = +1, N = –1, P/NV = 0 H.R. 3396, Defense of Marriage Act, Y = –1, N = +1, P/NV = 0 on passage, roll no. 316 Variable Specification, Coding, and Description 197 Sponsorship/Cosponsorship H.R. 1863, Employment Non-Discrimination S/C = +1, not S/C = 0 Act of 1995 105th Congress (1997–1998) Votes H.Amdt. 789, H.R. 4194, roll no. 349 Y = –1, N = +1, P/NV = 0 H.Amdt. 855, H.R. 4276, roll no. 398 Y = –1, N = +1, P/NV = 0 H.Amdt. 871, H.R. 4380, roll no. 414 Y = –1, N = +1, P/NV = 0 Sponsor/Cosponsorship H.R. 1858, Employment Non-Discrimination S/C = +1, not S/C = 0 Act of 1997 H.R. 3081, Hate Crimes Prevention Act S/C = +1, not S/C = 0 of 1997 106th Congress (1999–2000) Votes H.Amdt. 201, H.R. 1501, roll no. 223 Y = –1, N = +1, P/NV = 0 H.Amdt. 284, H.R. 1691, roll no. 298 Y = +1, N = –1, P/NV = 0 H.Amdt. 356, H.R. 2587, roll no. 346 Y = –1, N = +1, P/NV = 0 Graham motion...