Comments on: The NGLTF Study On Race and Prop 8: The Problem of Margins of Error

By: Same-Sex Marriage in DC and Polling « The NLGJA Blog

Same-Sex Marriage in DC and Polling « The NLGJA Blog — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 20:19:47 +0000

[...] the NGLTF study isn’t exactly rock-solid either, as Jim Burroway and Timothy Kincaid at BoxTurtleBulletin have pointed out, raising questions about NGLTF’s [...]

By: pat

pat — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 05:14:35 +0000

Jim said “gays were never enslaved or lynched in mass numbers”.

Gays being exterminated in mass numbers during Nazi Germany doesn’t count for anything?

By: Jaime Grant

Jaime Grant — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 17:37:46 +0000

As director of the NGLTF Policy Institute, I want to thank Jim Burroway for ultimately concluding that the authors of our recent election analysis report on Prop 8 – Ken Sherrill and Pat Egan “were successful in demonstrating that the Black vote may be closer to 58% than 70%.” At no point in the Task Force report do we make a claim that 58 percent is the precise answer. Rather, we stress throughout the study
that the range of data available to us leads us to the conclusion that 58% is much more accurate than 70%.

Burroway is justifiably concerned about sample size. The DBR survey includes 149 African Americans, making the margin of error for that population (as is typically calculated by pollsters) 8 percentage
points. Our analysis of this minority population is of course limited by its sample size in this survey. But unlike other polls, the DBR survey makes a deliberate attempt to rectify this problem by over-sampling African Americans, resulting in an African American sample that is at least
double the size of those found in typical surveys of Californians. This greatly augments the statistical power of our survey to detect differences among racial and ethnic groups.

Burroway says that we conclude that “religiosity explains the
differences in how African-Americans voted relative to everyone else.” This falsely characterizes our conclusions. We say rather that “controlling for
frequency of religious attendance helps explain why African Americans
supported Proposition 8 at higher levels than the population as a
whole.” In other words, if you’re trying to figure out why African Americans voted at higher rates for Proposition 8 than the general population, part of the answer is that they as a group are more religious than the general population–and religious people voted at high rates for Prop. 8. We show this quite clearly.

Thanks for your attention to this study, which we believe points to the value of LGBT-friendly faith based organizing in ballot measure campaigns. As all of us consider how to move the dial just a few more critical points toward marriage equality, taking a close look at the vote, while taking stock of our strategies to date, is an important next step.

Jaime Grant
Director of the Policy Institute

By: Priya Lynn

Priya Lynn — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 16:21:07 +0000

Mad Professor, that’s more blacks lynched than I would have thought.

By: John

John — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:51:09 +0000

I would agree that gays and lesbians need to find a more effective way of reaching out to all voting constituency, but I find this whole preoccupation with how blacks voted on Prop 8 to be an interesting diversion, but a diversion nonetheless.

Blacks did not write this proposition. Unlike the virtually all white Mormon Church members, I would venture to guess that very few dollars for this campaign came from blacks. This campaign wasn’t manaaged or run by black folks, and the No on 8 campaign ignored the ethnic vote.

The blame for Prop 8 lies sqarely with the authors, promoters and financers of this propostion, and African Americans are very unrepresented in that group.

By: dairyqueen

dairyqueen — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 01:44:49 +0000

This article was way too long. You lost me half way in.

By: Mad Professah

Mad Professah — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:54:02 +0000

Priya, what do you consider “mass numbers”?

There were definitely THOUSANDS of Black people (almost always Black men) lynched in the South.

The estimates of documented lynchings is usually in the under 5000 range (between 1860-1950) but those are just the lynchings that we know about!

By: Priya Lynn

Priya Lynn — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 23:24:41 +0000

Jim said “gays were never enslaved or lynched in mass numbers”.

Blacks were enslaved in mass numbers, but lynched – I’m not so sure. Correct me if I’m wrong, but I don’t think blacks were lynched in mass numbers.

By: Mad Professah

Mad Professah — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 20:20:45 +0000

This is a much more reasoned analysis than Timothy Kincaid’s.

Thank you for that.

By: homer

homer — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 19:34:40 +0000

I am also a dish queen, as you well know.