Race and religion are significant, no doubt. But what that ignores is socioeconomics, aka class. Poor people look at issues like gay marriage and their initial reasoning might be ungenerous and go along the lines of ”Their lives are hard, but so is mine. So just why should I make their lives easier? They ignore my needs and desires, won’t even talk to me directly, won’t even do the simple legwork of asking for my vote in person. It’s physically lazy and mentally lazy, all about themselves.”

Then those Yes ads appeared on TV that made gay people look grossly selfish and uninterested in the plight of anyone else, even destructive. And the reply to that charge by the No On Eight people (and other campaigns) that followed was feeble and disorganized and beside the point, just as if the charge really had substance.

And in an oblique sense, the charge had truth. The NOE leadership was pretty blinkered and not that knowledgeable about the California electorate. It didn’t reach out, it didn’t go to enough other interest groups and ask/bargain for votes. It didn’t regard itself as responsible for a vision, for articulating a deep and collective rationale for a more socially egalitarian California.

Thank you for this very valuable addition to the conversation.

“Whites” are not immune to misogyny. While the specific manifestations of it vary somewhat by ethnicity, white men are just as dismissive of feminity, just as afraid of perceived as feminine, as men of other ethnicities.

Personally, I think the remaining racial difference in voting on Prop 8 springs from the trickle down – where some who experience discrimination pass it on to elevate their own social status by reducing that of others.

Homophobia is just one branch of sexism. Ultimately, the spite against gays is for degrading themselves into the status of being feminine by virtue of liking men. This makes them “soft”, and no self-respecting Latino/African American population will let this go unrectified.