PROP 8 BACKLASH...BACKLASH

a smarter campaign
Updated 11/12 - See below.

Apart from Obama's win, the other election story that's been getting heavy play has been dissecting Prop 8, and in particular, the Black vote. Obviously, that was part of the convo with Poplicks' earlier post but there's some new information - and arguments - worth considering.

1) That 70% number being bandied around should have been taken with a greater grain of salt (not the least of all by me). That's what CNN reported but a local, Los Angeles exit poll suggests a far more balanced vote: "another poll by the Center for the Study of L.A. found in Los Angeles, just over half of blacks supported Prop 8." That would put the Black vote closer to the overall result (52/48). At the very least, it suggests that no single demographic was the tipping point.

2) Also, 538.com points out that even if CNN's polls contain some truth, they also show that among first-time voters, Prop 8 would have gone to defeat. This goes directly to the argument that "all those Obama voters got Prop 8 passed". That idea plays well as a media soundbite but it doesn't necessarily hold up to scrutiny.

3) Speaking of scrutiny, if you can get through the 10,000 words written here, there's an even more thorough numerical debunking on DailyKos. I'll just skip to the conclusion: "Proposition 8 would have still passed by 81,565 votes, if Black voters had done no more than reflect the rest of the state's will on the matter." I didn't realize this was actually in contention - the math isn't that complicated to figure out that Black votes - alone - could not have made the key difference in the election. Whites and Latinos had far more numerical clout.

4) What's interesting is how the perception around the electoral math - right or wrong - has taken a life of its own since those who presume it's true proceed with arguments that seek to explain that 70% figure. Case in point, Jasyme Cannick wrote an op-ed piece for the LA Times that explains why she thinks the proposition did poorly amongst African Americans:

"The white gay community never successfully communicated to blacks why it should matter to us above everything else -- not just to me as a lesbian but to blacks generally. The way I see it, the white gay community is banging its head against the glass ceiling of a room called equality, believing that a breakthrough on marriage will bestow on it parity with heterosexuals. But the right to marry does nothing to address the problems faced by both black gays and black straights. Does someone who is homeless or suffering from HIV but has no healthcare, or newly out of prison and unemployed, really benefit from the right to marry someone of the same sex?

Some people seem to think that homophobia trumps racism, and that winning the battle for gay marriage will symbolically bring about equality for everyone. That may seem true to white gays, but as a black lesbian, let me tell you: There are still too many inequalities that exist as it relates to my race for that to ever be the case. Ever heard of "driving while black"? Ever looked at the difference between the dropout rates for blacks and for whites? Or test scores? Or wages? Or rates of incarceration?

And in the end, black voters in California voted against gay marriage by more than 2 to 1."

I think Cannick makes some excellent points here, not the least of which was the weaknesses of the No on 8 campaign, especially around outreach. In an interview on NPR she did, she pointed out that when she was registering African Americans to vote in neighborhoods like Watts' Jordan Projects, it became apparent to her that the Yes on 8 campaign had found a way to get the word out there but not the No on 8 campaign.

If true, this raises at least two questions: did No on 8 not know how reach this community? Or maybe they just didn't think it would matter and so they didn't try.

This said, there was one thing nagging me in Cannick's argument: she makes a good case for why the campaign failed on outreach but that doesn't address why there'd be so much opposition to gay marriage within the Black community (again, assuming CNN's numbers were vaguely accurate, which they may not be).

What I'm saying is that there's a big difference between a proposition legalizing gay marriage vs. a proposition which rescinds legalization. Polls have consistently showed that while many people are not in favor of legalizing gay marriage an even larger number of people are against the idea of amending the constitution to enforce that. To put it another way, it's one thing to give a right; it's another thing to take it away and Prop 8 was asking people to remove a right.

Indifference alone wouldn't get the latter passed. If you don't care about gay marriage one way or another, why vote for rescinding it? In this case, a "yes" vote meant you were actively deciding, "I don't want gay people to have this right" and Cannick's argument, well-stated as it is elsewhere, doesn't really address this point. The only exception is when she writes:

"black civil rights movement was essentially born out of and driven by the black church; social justice and religion are inextricably intertwined in the black community. To many blacks, civil rights are grounded in Christianity -- not something separate and apart from religion but synonymous with it. To the extent that the issue of gay marriage seemed to be pitted against the church, it was going to be a losing battle in my community."

Somewhere, Ronnie is smiling, about to say, "see, told you!"

Cannick actually elaborates more on this point in that NPR interview, the gist of which is that gay marriage proponents really need to strategize a way to win over people that has to include the recognition of how the church plays a role in the Black community. As I suggested in my original post, the church network turned out to be tremendously effective for the Yes on 8 campaign and Cannick's advice here would align well with the idea that any future organizing will either have to persuade (or on the other hand, stymie) the degree that religious networks become involved.

5) Last thing, but check out this county breakdown comparing Prop 22 (2000) with Prop 8. It's basically a tale of two regions - CA coastal cities were the main swing force - the Bay Area went over more pro-gay marriage while Los Angeles went less anti-gay marriage. However, what was consistent was opposition to gay marriage everywhere else in the state. BUT, even then, support for gay marriage - at worst - was static but otherwise gained elsewhere. That, to me, is a positive sign for the future.

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11/12 Update: Mark Anthony Neal addresses many of these same issues and, I think, nails some important ideas to move forward with:

"black views on same sex-marriage are more complicated; simply reading black voters as inherently homophobic misses the complexity of an issue that, in black communities, is often tied to the absence of black men as husbands and fathers. Understood in that context, same-sex marriage goes against the belief of many within black communities that black survival is hopelessly tied to traditional marriage patterns. That said, the Black Clergy needs to be accountable for hateful rhetoric directed towards gays, lesbians and transgendered citizens (including a good many in their congregations) and for willful fear-mongering."

"For black communities we need to get past our romantic ties to the traditional nuclear family and the thought that we can only raise productive children if both a man and women are present in a household... Obama himself is evidence of models that don’t privilege the presence of father-figure per se, but rather the presence of many adults engaged in the lives of our children. Quite frankly, black children raised in a gay or lesbian household with engaged adult figures are likely better off than those raised in single-parent households or in heterosexual households where neither parent is up to the challenge of parenting. The point here is that we need to be more sophisticated about how family structures function."

"White progressives who sought to defeat Proposition 8 would do well to be a little more self-critical of the privilege that undergirds some of their politics. Debates about same-sex marriage, however important they are, are debates that only a privileged few can really be engaged in. The struggle for them is to better align these debates with the material realities of the working poor and the working class, communities for which the time to protest anything is at a premium...It is incumbent upon white progressives to get better at finding common ground with black communities, beyond the dated liberal agenda that brought us together in the first place."

As always, Mark is the M.A.N.

--O.W.