In the week after Barack Obama’s historic victory, gays and lesbians are pondering another historic, albeit less victorious, moment of their own. Three anti-gay marriage propositions passed -- in Florida, Arizona, and California. In Arkansas gay people were barred from adopting children. Now the real fight begins.
The news has centered largely on California’s Proposition 8, which garnered much of the pre-election publicity, due to the high-profile involvement of people on both sides of the issue -- celebrities like Brad Pitt and Steven Spielberg for the No on 8 faction, and James Dobson’s Focus on the Family and Mormon Church members, major contributors to the passage of the proposition.
Likewise, post-election press focused heavily on Prop. 8’s passage. Articles dissected how the nation could elect its first black president and pass a law that injects discrimination into a state constitution -- made more unbelievable still because California is a harbinger for forward-thinking progressive movements, usually followed in time by the rest of the country.
The National Review Online’s Jonah Goldberg, in a piece titled “Progressivism’s Achilles Heel,” writes, “Arguably the most liberal presidential nominee in American history, Obama has given some very old ideas an aura of new coolness. Congrats on all that. Hope it works out for you.” Then the writer points out that gay marriage bans “have ultimately passed in all 30 of the states in which they were on the ballot.”
Goldberg says that if Obama hadn’t pulled a huge number of minority voters to the polls, the proposition would have been shot down. Prop. 8 “would have failed in the Golden State if it were up to white voters, who opposed it by a 51-49 ratio. What carried it over the top was enormous support from black voters, with about 70% of them backing it. Hispanics also supported the ban by significant, though smaller, margins. In Florida, where a similar ban required a 60% margin, Amendment 2 just barely passed, getting 60% of the white vote. The cushion came from blacks, who voted 71% in favor, and Latinos, who voted 64% in favor.”
His point is one that has been the centerpiece of the post-election analysis. Black voters are essentially getting much of the blame, to which Raymond Roker, a Huffington Post blogger and founder of Urb magazine, responds, “Stop Blaming California’s Black Voters for Prop. 8.” Roker explains that he voted against 8 and that black voters are not solely responsible -- “Don't forget the 49% of Asians who voted for Prop. 8. And the 53% of Latinos who fell in line for it too. And then there is the white vote in support of 8. Slightly under 50% percent of them, a group representing 63% of California voters, voted 'Yes' on 8.”
Roker suggests that certain ethnic groups aren’t the ones to blame and says that it’s the religion, stupid. “Surveys showed religion played a major role in voters' decisions. Even No on 8 supporters have admitted that their camp was too complacent, arrogant and far too unorganized.”
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