The most divisive proposition on the California ballot this election year was Proposition 8. Voting "Yes" on the ballot meant adding to the California constitution that only marriage between one man and one woman would be legally valid. Voting "No" would let stand a decision by the California State Supreme Court that marriage between homosexuals is considered valid.
Proposition 8 was passed by the voters of California with a fairly comfortable margin of 52%-48%. Some people who are not from California could easily be pretty confused by the victory of Prop 8, what with California's liberal reputation and the San Francisco/West Hollywood reputation as well.
Part of the explanation for the passage of Prop 8 is not where you would initially look: California's black and Hispanic voters. The same black and Hispanic voters who voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama, also voted overwhelmingly in favor of Prop 8. Blacks favored Prop 8 by a margin of 70%-30%, and Hispanics were about evenly divided. This is especially ironic when you think about supporters of homosexual marriage often comparing their plight to the black civil rights movement.
The biggest split among the voters on Prop 8 was between old and young: older voters supported it, younger voters opposed it. Does this mean that ten or twenty years from now, we are going to have to vote on this matter all over again? This is a big drawback about messing with the constitution - state or federal - with a majority vote rather than multi-step amendment process.
Good Day to You, Sir
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free... it expects what never was, and never will be." --Thomas Jefferson
4 comments:
I think the in-your-face comments of San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom also had a lot to do with how the vote turned out.
When you disregard the law (and the majority voice of the people) and then say "it's coming whether you like it or not", people react.
Ah yes:
"The door's wide open now! It's gonna happen! Whether you like it or not!"
What an asshat that guy is.
Just as Barack supporters changed their middle names to "Hussein" to show soladarity, I think people in same-sex weddings (like myself) should change their middle names to "Nigger"
After all, the Blacks made their mandate clear! Send homosexuals to the back of the bus so they can feel better.
Call me
Reuven Nigger Avram
While this is a sad, sad event.. as you say, the march of progress is on the side of equal rights. Just as people look back with surprised sadness at a time when mixed race marriages were illegal, so they will look back with the same emotions at a time when people banned marriage between two men or two women.
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