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Prop. 8 “Analysis” Not Necessarily Supported by the Numbers |
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A snippet of “analysis,” courtesy of the AP (here via the LA Times), seems to have dictated what fast became the received wisdom on the “be careful what you fish for” conundrum of the Obama campaign’s drive for increased minority turnout vis-à-vis the very unfortunate passage of Proposition 8 (eliminating marriage rights for same-sex couples):
California’s black and Latino voters, who turned out in droves for Barack Obama, also provided key support in favor of the state’s same-sex marriage ban. Seven in 10 black voters backed a successful ballot measure to overturn the California Supreme Court’s May decision allowing same-sex marriage, according to exit polls for The Associated Press.
More than half of Latino voters supported Proposition 8, while whites were split. Religious groups led the tightly organized campaign for the measure, and religious voters were decisive in getting it passed. Of the seven in 10 voters who described themselves as Christian, two-thirds backed the initiative. Married voters and voters with children strongly supported Proposition 8. Unmarried voters were heavily opposed.
The sound of this report, what with it being grounded in a poll and all, makes it hard to refute—and, indeed, it seems few have tried. The language in the top paragraph, or some slight variant, appears in most of the major reports I’ve read or heard in the two days since the November 4th referendum. The implication is clear, and has been said outright, first-time non-white voters brought into the system by the Obama campaign provided the margin necessary to pass Prop. 8.
Except that if you look at the data from the AP exit poll, that isn’t clear at all.
Unless there are cross-tabulations from this poll that have not been made publicly available, I cannot see how the numbers support the certitude of the claim. The above narrative is a possibility, but so are many other stories—and I feel that other conclusions are likely just as viable.
First off, while it is true that African American voters in California did vote overwhelmingly for the marriage ban—70% YES to 30% NO—Latinos were more closely divided: 53% YES to 47% NO. That’s significant, but not in the same league as the margin from African American voters. It also should be noted that African Americans accounted for 10% of those polled; Latinos, 18%.
More to my point, however, is the missing cross-tab. There are a good number of sub-samples available in the published results (more on some of those in moment), but “African American first-time voters that voted for Obama-Biden” or even just “African American first-time voters” are not among them.
It is quite possible that with that many cuts, the sample size is too small to yield results that pass statistical muster, but without the ability to run my own cross-tabs, I can’t tell you.
Here’s what I can tell you (based on what is posted), and it is some of these numbers that make me at least harbor doubts about the “new Black voters are conservative on social issues” storyline.
(The first number in brackets is the % of the total sample, the second number is the % that voted YES, and the third is the % that voted NO.)
Democrats (42) 36 - 64
Republicans (29) 82 - 18
Independents (28) 46 - 54Is this the first year you’ve ever voted?
Yes (14) 38 - 62
No (86) 56 - 44Union Household (25) 56 - 44
Non-union Household (75) 50 - 50Who did you want to win in the nomination?
Dems for Clinton (15) 39 - 61
Dems for Obama (23) 31 - 69Suburban voters (51) 59 - 41
Large city voters (45) 45 - 55Do you think Obama’s positions are:
Too liberal (32) 74 - 25
Too conservative (7) (sample too small)
About right (56) 31 - 69Voted for Obama (60) 32 - 68
Voted for McCain (38) 84 - 16
Democrats overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, first-time voters overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, those who are in accordance with Obama’s positions overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, those who supported Obama in the primary overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8, those who voted for Obama on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected Prop. 8.
Urban voters rejected the measure by a ten-point margin, while suburban voters supported it by eight. I don’t know what the racial breakdown is of California’s suburbs, but I would assume that large cities would have the larger African American populations.
The only category that could have been influenced by the “Obama effect” (for lack of a better name) is the union vote. It has been widely reported how active organized labor was in getting out the vote for Barack Obama, and, as you see above, union households favored the marriage ban by 12 points. However, and this is a big however, this number might also be deceptive because the “households” category, almost by definition, includes a lot of families. Married with children (31% of the sample) voted YES 68% of the time (all others—69% of the sample—rejected Prop. 8 by ten points).
While none of what I have just detailed rules out the hypothesis that first-time African American voters brought to the polls by the Obama candidacy proved the difference in the passage of Proposition 8, I think there is enough here to call that narrative into question. For all we know, most of the 70% of the African American population that voted YES on 8 would have come out and voted even if Obama wasn’t on the ballot. Conversely, it might be the case that the 30% of African Americans that rejected the measure are the ones voting for the first time. Might be—I just can’t tell.
And if I can’t tell, I am figuring that most of the establishment press parroting the AP’s narrative probably can’t tell either.
No doubt there is much to be done to combat the homophobic bias evidenced in this tally, and in similar outcomes in other states, but the discussion about what is to be done could be influenced by perceptions of which groups bear responsibility for the final outcome. Indeed, the way Obama governs could be shaped by the larger story about what kinds of voters provided the president-elect’s margin of victory. Without the ability to further analyze the exit poll data, we should not accept the center-right narrative or claims of any particular Obama effect.
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(cross-posted on guy2k and capitoilette)
TO ALL WHO OPPOSE SAME-SEX MARRIAGE:
I think you%u2019re good people, like me. I pay my taxes that support my schools and religious institutions so they can give back to the community. I don%u2019t hurt anyone and only try to help. I oppose people who try to infringe on religious freedoms, and I don%u2019t seek to infringe upon what %u201Cmarriage%u201D means to you. I appreciate that most of you DO approve of %u2018domestic partnerships%u2019 and %u2018civil unions%u2019 for gay people, but please listen to why that doesn%u2019t work.
The federal government gives married people about 1000 rights. The state gives them about 400 additional rights. The reason the government is involved in marriage at all is to promote and protect stable, happy families as basic units of society. Obviously marriage is not solely for procreation, as we do not remove that right from you if you are infertile, elderly, or choose not to have children. When you marry, you are automatically entitled to those 1400 rights, including the right to visit a spouse in the hospital, be added to your spouse%u2019s insurance policies, acquire property with your spouse and automatically inherit it if your spouse dies, and many more. These 1400 rights are not simply and easily written up in a single civil document, nor always enforceable; for instance, a person under a state%u2019s domestic partnership can%u2019t force the IRS to give him the tax benefits afforded to married couples. It is extremely complex and doesn%u2019t always work; I am aware of gay people whose partners died and the deceased%u2019s hostile family successfully asserted their ownership of everything in spite of the contract, leaving the survivor destitute. Imagine children being involved, and a deceased partner%u2019s hostile family takes your children from you because your civil contract didn%u2019t stand up in court proving you were next of kin! In Arkansas, the majority just voted to prohibit unmarried people from adopting, meaning a gay person can%u2019t even adopt their partner%u2019s children to ensure that if their partner dies the children will remain with the surviving parent they love!
%u2018Civil unions%u2019 and %u2018domestic partnerships%u2019 permit OSTENSIBLY most of the 400 state-afforded rights of married couples, but NONE of the 1000 federal ones, and I can tell you from personal experience that the state ones are NOT equal. Just one example is that to get on my partner%u2019s insurance policy, we had to provide our certificate of domestic partnership, copies of financial records proving we had co-mingled finances and lived in the same home for at least two years, and more. If I died, my partner would have to wait at least two years to add her new partner to the policy to prove the relationship was %u2018real%u2019. Married people don%u2019t even need to provide a copy of a marriage license, and if their spouse died today, they could add a new spouse tomorrow. This is only one example out of MANY.
Other rights are specific to helping children of married people, including ensuring automatic inheritance rights, the right of a non-blood related parent to pick up a sick child from school, alimony and child support to help with their care in the event of divorce, and many more. No matter the makeup of the family or how it comes to be %u2014 be it traditional nuclear, or grandparents raising their grandchild, or a blended family resulting from divorced people remarrying, or single parents, or adoptive parents, or childless couples, or gay couples %u2014 ALL of these people deserve the same rights so they have the best chances of happiness and contribution to society.
What I would like to see the FEDERAL government do is create one proto-marriage type of relationship (%u2019civil union%u2019?) that applies equally to all people who want it, including granting them all 1400 of the rights and responsibilities that %u201Cmarried%u201D people currently enjoy, and then simply leave the word %u201Cmarriage%u201D for religiously-inclined people who want to further consecrate their relationship according to their religions. I think that is what the MAJORITY of us all want. Unfortunately, the federal government is currently leaving the issue to states to decide, so we are stuck wrestling for the one word that currently encompasses all 1400 of those rights, and that word is %u201Cmarriage%u201D. Granting the existing rights encompassed by one word to a minority is a lot easier than changing 1400 laws to encompass them. That%u2019s really all there is to it, see?
I understand many of you are afraid that legalizing gay marriage will lead to your children being forced to learn in school that homosexuality is %u201Cnormal%u201D. I will be the first to agree with you that homosexuality is NOT %u201Cnormal%u201D - the parts don%u2019t fit and we can%u2019t make babies. But consider that in one out of every 100 live births, a child is born with ambiguous genitalia (intersexed). If God creates 1% of babies that way, why do we then do surgery to %u201Ccorrect%u201D them to one sex or the other and make them %u201Cnormal%u201D? God made me abnormal too - I%u2019m among the small percentage of people whose wiring is crossed so I%u2019m attracted to my own sex. My abnormality doesn%u2019t lead me to hurt anyone. The worst law I%u2019ve ever broken is the speed limit. Learning that homosexuals exist isn%u2019t going to turn any child homosexual, but it will help the small percentage born with this abnormality to feel less alone. That%u2019s really the worst that could happen. All the same, currently in California no child can be forced, against the will of their parents, to be taught anything about homosexuality at school.
As for the slippery slope arguments that legalizing gay marriage will automatically lead to legalizing polygamy or incestuous marriages, those forms of marriage existed throughout most of recorded history but are too impractical or undesirable for the vast majority of Americans to even consider today. As for legalizing gay marriage leading to legalizing people marrying pets or children, these can%u2019t even give informed consent. Please stay off the slippery slope; the ONLY topic we%u2019re asking you to agree on is legalizing gay marriage.
We gay people and our families are being hurt by laws as they stand, and all we are asking for is the concession that the word %u201Cmarriage%u201D include us so we may enjoy its rights - and responsibilities. I will leave you with the words of Mildred Loving, who wrote this forty years after her 1967 legal case struck down laws barring interracial marriage:
%u201CSurrounded as I am now by wonderful children and grandchildren, not a day goes by that I don%u2019t think of Richard and our love, our right to marry, and how much it meant to me to have that freedom to marry the person precious to me, even if others thought he was the %u2018wrong kind of person%u2019 for me to marry. I believe all Americans, no matter their race, no matter their sex, no matter their sexual orientation, should have that same freedom to marry.%u201D
(Barack Obama should take notice, since he supports %u201CSeparate But Equal%u201D rights for gays - but was born in the US at a time when his own parents%u2019 interracial marriage was not recognized in many states.)
Peace.
im sick of the media playing this out to be hatred and discrimination when its not. gay people still have legal rights that married people have, so it isnt discrimination. the majority spoke and this is not acceptable. not only do all restrictions on marriage go out the window if this had gone through (you would have to let incestual marriage be tolerated becuase it is the same guidelines as gay marriage, 2 consenting adults who love each other), but now gay people keep pushing their agenda to people who dont agree with it. stop the circus this is becoming ridiculous.