Box Turtle Bulletin

As disappointing as Prop 8 was, it was even more disastrous that the No on 2 campaign was so weak it couldn’t manage to whittle down the Yes votes to below the 60% needed. When one of your best ads features Michael Schiavo, you’ve got issues.

Undoing this with another amendment is not going to happen any time soon.

Good to see race wasn’t a negative, just something that needs to be worked on.

Timothy Kincaid

So, if I read this correctly, education and race both played a role, with education having a larger direct-ratio impact.

But I hope that we won’t just say things are hunky-dory in the African American community or that we don’t have lots of work there to do. Because, if I have the math correct, a 1 to 2/10th ratio shows that black voters in Florida tended to vote by 20 points more in favor of the initiate than did their non-black neighbors.

I guess the question is whether it will be easier to get more Floridians to have a bachelors degree or get more of Florida’s African Americans to reconsider their views on gay equality.

David C.

It’s not clear from the linked article that the study controlled for religiosity among blacks, a factor which strongly correlates with attitudes towards marriage equality.

Other studies have shown correlations between religiosity and education. WIthout actually seeing the study, it’s hard to say from the information in the linked article if the study design allows one to draw accurate conclusions concerning African Americans and education level achieved. I hope the study makes distinctions between the effects of religious beliefs and education on the AA sub-population with respect to marriage equality. I’m looking forward to reading it.

Varburg

Agree with Burr. The lack of attention given to No on 2 was a gross mistake. It took 60% to pass an amendment banning marriage and civil unions, and they didn’t win by much. But reversing it will take another 60% vote in the other direction, requiring 10% of the electorate to switch sides. This won’t happen in 2012. This will take a decade.

Richard Wood

Funny, I don’t see the Florida researchers claiming anything about whether being “smart” affects one’s position on this issue. They talk about the number of years one has spent in institutions purportedly engaged in something called “education.” There was no IQ test or any other intelligence test administered to respondents.

Pender

Richard, IQ and educational achievement are strongly correlated. It’s not a stretch to assume that highly educated people tend to be much smarter than uneducated people.

Mark F.

Yes, the Florida result was far worse than the California result for the reason Varburg gives. Only 2% of California voters need to change their mind for us to have same sex marriage and our domestic partners law remains on the books.

Alan

I tend to be suspicious of the “smart people support our position” argument, even when I support the position in question. It just seems too self-serving.

And there are other factors that might account for this…the researchers said they took “political factors” into account, which I assume means they looked at the conservative/liberal divide of the counties they studied.

But I wonder if they took the political atmosphere of universities into account as well. Sociologists have shown that universities can influence students’ beliefs, even if the students are at the opposite side of the political spectrum from their institution. Since most universities lean to the left, it could be that university-educated people are more liberal (or at least socially liberal) than those who didn’t attend, which could also account for the discrepency.

Alex

This makes perfect sense to me. When someone opposes marriage equality, their reasoning usually boils down to some variation of either A) their religion tells them to, and B) they “just don’t agree with it.” Neither is the product of rational thought or logic.

On the other hand, education exposes us to different ways of thinking, different ways of life, and most importantly, factual information that holds up under scrutiny (such as the fact that countries which grant gay couples the right to marry have not fallen into chaos, etc.). People who lack a solid education are less capable of creating their own unique, well-informed opinions, and are therefore more likely to adopt the opinions of their peers, family, and religious community by default. That’s why the scare tactics, lies, and propaganda employed by the church and organizations like Focus on the Family work so well on the uneducated — they simply don’t know any better and thus do not question or challenge any of it.

Richard Wood

“How is it that little children are so intelligent and men so stupid? It must be education that does it.” (Alexander Dumas)

Richard Wood

That’s interesting, Alex. My experience has been that when people support redefining marriage so that homosexuals can do it, their reasoning usually boils down to 1) the people they hang out with support it, and 2) they “just agree with it.”

Alex

Alright then Richard, explain to us why you oppose same-sex marriage.

Alex

By the way, it’s Alexandre Dumas, not Alexander.

Marcus French

Jim,

And your point is what exactly?…

Timothy Kincaid

Marcus,

I think his point would be that smart, educated people support marriage equality more than uneducated people do. What’s yours?

Christopher Waldrop

Richard, you’ve managed to demonstrate that you can’t spell, you can’t read, and you can’t make an argument. Congratulations on your trifecta. As has already been pointed out in this thread, part of the value of education is that a good education teaches people to think critically.

For instance I can think of reasons other than just formal education that could be a contributing factor to the results of this study. For instance the majority of people who pursue higher degrees seem to come from either urban or suburban backgrounds where they’re exposed to greater diversity. It’s harder to hold onto a prejudice when you know individuals who are affected by it, especially if they don’t fit the stereotype dictated by the prejudice.

As I say, exposure to diversity doesn’t necessarily result from formal education, although it is education of a sort.

Priya Lynn

Richard, the people who support equal marriage do so because they don’t see any reason to deny a group of people the same rights others have – they think everyone should have the same rights.

Richard Wood

“Richard, youâ€™ve managed to demonstrate that you canâ€™t spell, you canâ€™t read, and you canâ€™t make an argument. ”

I forgot the third option in ‘argumentative strategy’ for those who want to redefine marriage–ad hominem insults. Nice work, Chris.

Ken in Riverside

@Richard Wood: Be fair, though. One can find ample evidence of people on both sides of the issue employing those. It’s unfortunate that they can be found here though :(

Alex

Richard,

Any chance you’ll give your reasons for opposing same-sex marriage? The homosexuals are curious.

Burr

Support for same-sex marriage is grounded in the Constitution. Opposition is mostly grounded in the Bible.

People differ on which is the supreme law of the land, apparently.

Christopher Waldrop

Richard, that was not an ad hominem insult, but it is a fair point. I can’t say with any certainty that you’re unable to make an argument. I can only say that, so far, you’ve been unwilling to make an argument.

Instead of complaining about others hurling insults, why not cease doing so yourself and address the issue?

Timothy (TRiG)

Of course, there is in the English-speaking world in general, and in the USA in particular, a very strong anti-intellectual streak. Witness the rise of Creationism and other forms of religious lunacy.

TRiG.

Marcus French

Timothy,

If I posted a story that said “homosexual men 50 times more likely to have AIDS than non-homosexual men,” I would think it would be clear that I am warning people not to engage in that behavior. In the same way, if Jim posts a story like this, I would think he is trying to get a point across, rather than just recounting a valueless fact.

Thus,I am wondering what point he is trying to get across. That supporting “gay marriage” is a more intellectually responsible thing to do than to not? That supporters of “gay marriage” are smarter than their counterparts?

Just wondering…

Priya Lynn

Marcus, smart and educated aren’t the same thing, I’ve known some extremely smart high school dropouts and some pretty dense people with PHDs. The two may be correlated, but they are not one in the same.

The point of this post would be that the more you know the more likely you are to be in favour of equal marriage.

Timothy Kincaid

Marcus,

If you posted a story that said â€œhomosexual men 50 times more likely to have AIDS than non-homosexual menâ€, you would be engaging in fear mongering, and you would also be factually incorrect.

The “50 times” number includes grandmas and nuns, not just “non-homosexual men”. And as to that rate you would be “warning people” about? Let me give you fewer scare headlines and more facts:

the rate of new infections in the population of gay and bisexual men in 2007 was 0.69%. Or in 2007 one out of every 144 gay/bi men seroconverted.

… it is consistent with our calculations that about 12% of gay/bi men (or about 6% of all gay/bi people) are infected with HIV.

Six percent of gay people? WAY too high. But let’s use honesty rather than fear in battling this disease.

Otherwise we can have headlines screaming “black children are 360,000 times more likely to have sickle cell anemia than white children” which are just “warning” white folk not to marry a black person.

Factually accurate? Yep.
Totally racist and without value to anyone’s real life? Also yep.

But I’m sure it makes some bigot happy.

Timothy Kincaid

Marcus,

As to Jim’s point, I can’t speak for Jim.

But what leaps out to me is that those persons who have experienced formal education – those who have been taken out of their insular environment and cause to be exposed to different ideas, different people, and the intellectual exchange of views – are more likely to reject anti-gay arguments about marriage than are people who have not been exposed to ideas outside of those shared by their family and friends.

In other words, it appears that if one is taken outside one’s echo chamber and is without the affirmation of those who share one’s bias, anti-gay arguments lose their appeal in the light of counter-arguments and meeting and talking to real live breathing gay folk.

Alex