The blame game...

[bovil]

Hokay.

"Blacks lost us Prop 8!"

Yeah, right.

There was a groundswell of black voters in California this cycle, true. They're still only a large enough voting block to really make a difference in races with tight margins like the Prop 8 race.

It's slicing up the electorate in ways that don't really make sense. The bigger issue is churchgoing and evangelical voters. Here are the "yes" numbers from the exit polls:

• weekly churchgoers: 84%
• white evangelicals: 81%
• white protestants: 65%
• Catholics: 64%

All of those groups are larger than the black vote, and the first and last include many black voters. Still, that's even slicing up things too simply (well, except white evangelicals). There were faith groups campaigning against Prop 8.

A big bunch of the blame rests with the "No" campaign. The advertising was sucktacular. So much time was spent countering the lies of the "Yes" campaign that our message never got out.

I don't know, though, that the "No" campaign knew how to get our message out.

Where were the "A 'yes' vote is a vote to end our marriage" ads?

Where were the ads featuring interracial straight couples recalling when their marriages were illegal?

Where were the ads featuring supportive ministers of all faiths and denominations asking for the right to perform same-sex marriages?

Where were the ads showing that, while domestic partnerships in law confer all the rights and responsibilities of marriage, we continuously have to fight to get organizations and people to obey that law and grant us our rights?

Where was our narrative?

Oh, and where were the ads featuring Governor Arnie, who constantly walks a tightrope claiming one thing and doing the opposite?

Comments

[bovil.livejournal.com]

I don't think we got any print mailers on Prop 8. Sounds like there was a distribution issue (or both sides assumed they had our neighborhood).

Church outreach was crap. Still, there were faith groups campaigning against 8, including a very regular 1/3 page ad in the Merc the last few weeks.

There are black leaders and activists who don't see the connection between gay rights and the greater civil rights movement. This is no surprise; the connections made at the Stonewall riots and protests where Black Panthers sat together with lipstick lesbians from NYU didn't last very long.

Still, that's not the point.

Television ads featuring religious leaders speaking out against 8, even if they were in the minority, would expose the cracks in the supposedly monolithic faith communities, and would challenge people to think.

Television ads featuring interracial couples speaking out against 8, even if they weren't in the mainstream of racial minority community activism, would expose the cracks in those communities and challenge people to think.

Television ads featuring queer members of racial minorities would have put a personal face on the issue and possibly challenge people to relate, just as Obama's election put a new face on the US presidency.

[trystbat.livejournal.com]

I saw *a lot* of the advertising, TV & print, for both sides. IMO, the 'no on 8' campaign threw the kitchen sink at the populace & got a split vote. The 'yes on 8' campaign hammered home two lies -- school indoctrination & churches losing nonprofit status -- & those resonated a little more strongly with the ppl who came out to vote.

The 'no' campaign also overestimated/misread the Obama effect: Dems did not overwhelmingly vote against 8.

You can nitpick a few ads & say they needed more, but this was the costliest ballot measure the U.S. has ever seen (on both sides), so I don't think more ads with different messages would have been the perfect thing.

Outreach into foreign territory? Yeah, that would helped, but that's extremely difficult unless you have authenticity. Where are these multicultural & religious leaders who are powerful & charismatic enough to carry some weight & truly bridge between the evangelical communities & the LGBT communities?

I can't go knocking the campaign bec. they at least tried & harder than anyone has tried in any state on any similar measure. I lay the blame squarely on the people of California who voted for that hateful prop., who didn't pay attention, who sucked up the lies, who let their religious views taint their participation in government. The biggest excuse I've heard in various news sources for voting 'yes' was Biblical. Fighting that takes a lot more than some well-crafted ads.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

I don't think any outreach could have reached the evangelical or Mormon communities.

Where religious outreach would have helped was with all the other Christian denominations. There's a very strong socially liberal Catholic tradition that's often at odds with the hierarchy (which is why the exit polls showed only 65% of Catholics voting "yes"). Mainstream Protestant denominations are often inclusive and socially liberal. Religious outreach would also have probably been successful with non-Christian religions.

Finally, religious outreach might have even convinced some of the evangelicals and Mormons that voting their religious beliefs into law might come back to bite them when some other religious group attempts to do the same thing.