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News and commentary about the anti-gay lobby“Now you must raise your children up in a world where that union of man and box turtle is on the same legal footing as man and wife…”
News and commentary about the anti-gay lobbyNovember 7th, 2009
The Los Angeles Times has released a new poll with both encouraging and discouraging findings:
The California findings come from a new Los Angeles Times/University of Southern California College of Letters, Arts & Sciences poll. The survey, which interviewed 1,500 registered voters from Oct. 27 through Nov. 3, was conducted for the Times and USC by two nationally prominent polling firms, the Democratic firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, and the Republican firm Public Opinion Strategies. The results have a margin of error of +/-2.6 percentage points.
Overall, 51% of California voters favored marriage rights for same-sex couples and 43% were opposed. Strikingly, however, almost 60% of Californians did not want to revisit the issue in 2010, just one election cycle after it last hit the ballot.
The Times will report details tomorrow.
This poll will encourage the twelvers who will argue that pissing off the electorate will not be a winning strategy. Tenners might counter that unless the electorate wants to vote on this issue every two years forever, they should just do the right thing and be done with it.
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Burr
November 7th, 2009
51% in a poll is not enough. Too many lying bigots feeling guilty about their wrong opinion and undecideds still in those numbers. It’s what we’ve had in Maine and California before it went to the ballot box and we know how that turned out.
Until there’s polls that put marriage equality in a majority above any margin of error it’s hard to feel enthusiastic about pressing on.
As for people against putting it on the ballot, I think that’s just general Prop fatigue.
Robert S.
November 7th, 2009
As a Californian myself, as much as I want marriage with my partner of 4 years, 2010 is way too soon to be voting again. What do we do if the haters vote an even louder NO this time?
Dan
November 8th, 2009
Why is this even a debate? The Tenners haven’t done anything to indicate that they could really qualify for the ballot. The whole thing is a joke.
Also, I agree with Burr. I don’t believe the 51% at all. It is probably exactly where it stood in November 2008, slightly modified by this past year’s deaths in the 65+ group.
Steve
November 8th, 2009
The tricky thing about the 51% is that the people participating in the poll have not been bombarded by ads filled with animus toward gay families in recent months, which they will be before voting the next time.
Bruno
November 8th, 2009
51-43% = 51-49%. That is way too close to think we would win at the polls. We need to see our side consistently at 55% and above to even consider the possibility of a win at the polls.
Dan
November 8th, 2009
I just saw the full poll which was released today at latimes.com. The one thing that caught my eye is that it has 70% of respondents identifying as white.
Now, even though whites are over-represented among registered and likely voters, I have trouble believing that it gets to 70% in CA, where whites are now less than 50% of the population. If whites are over-represented in this poll, then it is likely that the pro-marriage position is inflated, since whites and Asians are more likely to support it.
Frequent Flier
November 8th, 2009
It is clear from Maine and California that polls on marriage have a clear Bradley effect versus actual results. I Washington we were polling around 57% and will end up around 52/53. ME and CA were polling in our favor 52/53% and the percentage of the actual opposition. Clearly we need to be polling at least 55% to think we have a chance. I honestly think we need to wait till 2014. 5 years of 65+ deaths, no Obama on the ballot to drive minority turnout to unusually high levels and time to give the voters a breather. I hate having to say that, I hate that this is even an electoral issue at all but that’s the reality. Going back an losing time and time again is a narrative that does us long-term damage. A better strategy in my opinion would be to go after electoral victories in states that we can win civil unions or DP’s in as we just did in WA. Places like AZ (our only defeat of an anti-marriage amendment to date, where the saving grace that civil unions were also banned), NM, IL, MN, PA, MD, etc. We can WIN those fights, in the near term and change the narrative in people’s minds that gay rights can’t win. And as noted in another post on BTB our CA and ME opponents have conceded the civil union/DP fight already. Then you move to a national civil union that is treated exactly like marriage in law as they have in the UK and New Zealand. From there marriage is only a matter of time, but at least people see real benefits in the interim.
Rik
November 8th, 2009
It is really a tragedy that gay men and women are not allowed to express their love and commitment legally. But like many other of my gay friends, 2010 is much too soon to try again. I find it so hypocritical that Christians and Mormons can’t find it in their hearts to live and let live. They express worry about the core family, when they forget that the majority of American families are one parent. Divorce is rampant. Perhaps if all these people (and I won’t call them bigots…yet) put all their energy and money into helping so many children, adults, and seniors in need….that would be the “Christian” thing to do. Stop worrying about our bedrooms and worry about your own.
AJD
November 9th, 2009
How about we address the issue of our rights being put up to a popular vote in the first place? On some Web site (maybe this one) I saw someone recalling a picket sign slogan that would work well: “You may not be gay, but you may be next.” If our rights can be simply put up to a popular vote and taken away thanks to the fleeting passions of easily manipulated voters, then why not those of other minorities? Maybe drive home the point that in some parts of this country, fundamentalist Christians are on their way to becoming a minority, and not exactly a popular one.
And I don’t think Prop. 8, Question 1 and Ref. 71 are simple matters of hypocrisy among fundamentalist Christians. They’re part of a nationwide effort that began in the 1970s to roll back gay rights and erase gay people from existence.
Pender
November 9th, 2009
I hope we’ve learned by now that we should reflexively subtract abut 5% from our supporters’ numbers on polls, since that’s about the amount by which we reliably underperform on election day.
Paula
November 9th, 2009
I was raised Mormon and it really bugs me that the church is at the forefront of the one man/one woman laws. They do not believe that marriage is between one man and one woman. Men are sealed to more than one wife all the time, though a woman cannot be sealed to more than one man for any reason. They try to avoid their polygamous past by not discussing what still goes on in temples and in doctrine. Start blasting them with documentaries in every state they fight against gay marriage and they’ll learn that they need to stay out of it if they don’t want their own dirty laundry aired.
Look into it. Although they no longer civilly marry two women to one man at a time, if there is a divorce or death and remarriage, women are forced to only be sealed for eternity to one man while men can be sealed serially to as many women as they want.
I also know a whole lot of Mormons who feel bad about voting against gay marriage, but believe that the church will have to perform gay marriages in teh temples if equality laws are passed. Make it clear in the language of the law that religions can perform and recognize whatever they want or not, as the case may be, and you’ll have a lot of reverse Bradley. They’ll say they follow the prophet, but won’t bother to show up to vote or contribute money because they really don’t feel good about messing with civil rights over religious differences.
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