ORIGINAL PAPER The Gag Reflex: Disgust Rhetoric and Gay Rights in American Politics Shana Kushner Gadarian 1 • Eric van der Vort 1 Ó Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2017 Abstract Political scientists have increasingly looked to the role that disgust plays in shaping public opinion and attitudes. This emotion plays an important role in building and reinforcing boundaries in the polity. It is particularly important in shaping attitudes toward gay rights. We analyze data from the 1993 American National Election Studies (ANES) data and two original studies. We find that dis- gust is a powerful but contingent rhetorical tool. It can powerfully shape public attitudes, especially on issues of sexual purity, but that efficacy must come with a strong caveat: our findings show that some members of the public will reject disgust rhetoric as an indignant reaction against the speaker. Keywords Disgust Á Emotion Á Gay rights Á Rhetoric Introduction The politics of disgust is alive and well. In 2013, future Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Dr. Ben Carson compared homosexuality to pedophilia and bestiality, saying: ‘‘[marriage is] a well-established, fundamental pillar of society and no group, be they gays, be they NAMBLA, be they people who believe in bestiality—it doesn’t matter what they are, they don’t get to change the definition’’ Electronic supplementary material The online version of this article (doi:10.1007/s11109-017-9412- x) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. & Eric van der Vort emvander@syr.edu 1 Department of Political Science, Maxwell School, Syracuse University, 100 Eggers Hall, Syracuse, NY 13244, USA 123 Polit Behav DOI 10.1007/s11109-017-9412-x