Divided & Conquered: As predicted, anti-gay black voters given disproportionate blame for Proposition 8 [video]
”Whites voted very narrowly against the ban, 51-49 percent. Asian-Americans voted the same. Hispanics voted for it, by 53-47 percent. Blacks voted for it, overwhelmingly, 70-30. Blacks can be said to have put it over the top. Hypothetically, had no blacks voted, we compute a vote of 50-50.”
ABC News Polling Director Gary Langer remarking on the perception that black voters who turned out for Barack Obama deserve particular blame for the passage of the anti-gay marriage voter initiative known as Proposition 8. (ABC News)
”I think that he [Mr. Obama] was very resolute in his statements along with Senator Biden. If anything might have added to the confusion it was how that statement was misconstrued. The support against Proposition 8 among African Americans wasn’t eroding until a mailer from Yes On 8 [the campaign driving Proposition 8] had a picture of Barack Obama with a statement that he supported Yes On 8 [though he doesn’t].”
Andrea Shorter, Director of And Marriage For All, a gay rights advocacy group. (ABC News)
”African-American Democrats are fiscally progressive (to wit, in favor of more government benefits for low-income Americans) but many are socially quite conservative, due to the influence of the black church. As the Bee article notes, black support for the ballot initiative to ban gay marriage is what propelled it to victory. This may come as a surprise to many white liberals who believe African-Americans to be on their side on social issues as well as financial issues.”
Bonnie Erbe, columnist and host of the PBS news show, ”To the Contrary.” (US News)
”The Obama people were thrilled to turn out high percentages of African Americans, but (Proposition 8) literally wouldn’t have passed without those voters.”
Gary Dietrich, president of Citizen Voice. (Sacramento Bee)
”I wasn’t surprised by the Latinos. Basically, Latinos and the Anglo population were fairly close. The outlier of the proposition was African Americans. Many are churchgoing; many had ministers tell them to vote.”
Steve Smith, senior consultant for No on 8. (Washington Post)
Although many of the state’s black political leaders spoke out against Proposition 8, an exit poll of California voters showed that black voters favored the measure by a ratio of more than 2 to 1. Not only was the black vote weighted heavily in favor of Proposition 8, but black turnout — spurred by Barack Obama’s historic campaign for president — was unusually large, with African Americans making up roughly 10% of the state electorate.
Portion of LA Times article highlighting black voters disdain for gay marriages. (LA Times)
”The first problem with Proposition 8 was the issue of marriage itself. 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?”
Jasmyne A. Cannick, a black lesbian writer who blames the outdated civil rights tactics of the ”No on 8” campaign because the same-sex marriage campaign was run by white gays, she says in her opinion piece to the LA Times. (LA Times)
According to the US Census Bureau, at 6.7% African-Americans are representative of a smaller portion of the California population when compared to 12% of the overall USA population. However black voters turned out in greater percentages to support Obama, and it’s reported that 10% of the voters in California were black. Breaking it down, that means 87% of the anti-gay marriage voters were not African-Americans, so why so much added emphasis on the black community?
Many churches in the black community were proud to represent themselves as being against same-sex marriage. Several protests have been organized at Mormon churches which, proportionally, had a far larger impact having raised millions of dollars for the ‘Yes on 8’ campaign; but it has been reported that there are currently no protests planned against any black churches. Many news articles are focusing on the black-versus-gay aspect and skipping over the other ”usual suspects,” Evangelicals and Catholics, who raised more money and coordinated efforts even better than black, religious organizations, and should therefore be given equal if not greater credit/blame for pushing Proposition 8 “over the top”.
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