Comments on: Maggie Gallagher Pines for Pawlenty

By: Stefan

Stefan — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 00:22:52 +0000

Gay marriage will not be repealed in New Hampshire. The issue is nothing more than political grandstanding for the GOP primary kickoff season. Even the bill’s sponsor expresses “uncertainty” of having the votes (there are still 26 Republicans in the state house who voted against repeal in 2010, and we would only need 4 more to kill a veto-proof majority). Plus, even if it does manage a veto-proof majority and pass, gay rights groups will immediately sue and likely stay the law, tying up the state’s legal resources for years and wasting much needed revenue which the state needs.

By: jc

jc — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 21:57:08 +0000

okay, i can’t resist asking….when does maggie unzip her forehead and show herself to be the last living descendent of the slitheen family from raxacoricofallapatorius?

By: Timothy Kincaid

Timothy Kincaid — Fri, 05 Aug 2011 16:53:32 +0000

We too think winning in Minnesota will be helpful. And, unlike Maggie, the polls do seem to be on our side.

The current consensus is that when it comes to anti-gay marriage bans, the “no” votes (our side) in polls are the votes you are going to get while the “yes” and all of the “undecided” will vote yes (statistically, not individually).

The last poll, back in May, shows the Minnesota Marriage Ban with 39% support and 55% opposed. Even using the above rule, it loses 45 to 55.

And Minnesota has one peculiarity to their propositions: to pass it must receive a majority of all voters, not just those who cast a vote on that proposition. Those who vote for President but not one way or the other on the proposition are counted as a “no” vote.

To see how that could impact a vote, in 2008 7,001,084 Californians voted “yes” on Proposition 8. That was 52.2% of all votes on the Proposition.

But 340,611 voters did not vote on that measure. Were they counted as “no” votes, as Minnesota rules require, then Prop 8 would still pass, but only with 50.9% of the vote and with only a 258,991 vote lead out of 13.4 million voters.