Myth of the Black-gay divide

The myth of the black/Latino vote somehow being crucial to the Prop 8 decision is exposed by the fact that 70% of California's voters are white, non-Hispanic, European descendants. See The Public Policy Institute of California, August 2008, "Just the Facts, Latino Voters in California" at
http://www.ppic.org/content/pubs/jtf/JTF_LatinoVotersJTF.pdf
So, here are the likely voters of California:
70% white (but 47% of the Cal adult population)
15% Latino (but 32% of the Cal adult population)
6% black (same as the percentage of black adults in California)
6% Asian-American (but 13% of the Cal adult population)

Some more facts to keep in mind when analyzing the Prop 8 vote:
--As of 11/11/08 at 7:08 p.m., the Cal Secretary of State reports that 11,550.668 people voted. This figure will increase until December 4, 2008 but many of the small counties have finished their counting, one week after the election.
See
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/Returns/status.htm

--THIS IS NOT AN UNUSUALLY HIGH TURNOUT FOR A GENERAL ELECTION in California. In November 2004, 15,891,482 people voted. See
http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/hist_stats_gen_prim/historical_voter_reg_general_nov06.pdf

--There are 27 million adults in California; 50% is 13.5 million. As of 11/11/08, we have yet to realize the goal of 50% of the California adults voting, although we may very well get there by December 4, 2008. Even if we reach that goal, it will mean that most of the workingclass, as usual, did not vote at all. That always means that the WHITE, PROPERTY OWNERS, MAKING OVER $100,000 A YEAR, WERE THE MAJORITY OF VOTERS.

--Further proof that we did not have a strong workingclass vote is the fact that Prop 5, the drug treatment instead of prison proposition, failed with 60% voting No and Prop 9, a pro-prison proposition, passed with 53% of the vote. So, despite the fact that Prop 6, another prison proposition, failed with 60% voting No, with 2 reactionary votes out of the 3 prison-issue propositions can only mean that THERE WAS NOT MUCH OF A WORKINGCLASS VOTE, AND THEREFORE, NOT MUCH OF A LATINO OR AFRICAN-AMERICAN VOTE.
See the election results at http://vote.sos.ca.gov/Returns/props/59.htm

--The endorsers of Prop 8 included not only the Catholic Church, the Mormon Church, and some other Protestant churches, but most importantly, the Republican Party, including most of the elected Republican officials in California except Governor Schwarzenegger who is married to a Democrat, Maria Shriver, and who has political ambition and thus needs to at least appear to support the gay vote. See “Know Your Enemy-The Endorsers of Proposition 8," dated 11/4/08, at: http://www.indybay.org/newsitems/2008/11/04/18548821.php

--In the presidential election, 4.3 million or 37% voted Republican in California. So far, 5,977,457 or 52.3% voted for Proposition 8. MOST OF THE YES ON PROP 8 VOTE WAS THE REPUBLICAN VOTE.

Of course, we must ask the question, who were the remaining 1.6 million voters for Prop 8? They were most likely the older non-Republican voters who cannot adjust to the concept of gay marriage. We must remember that it is the older voters, those over age 40, who are the most likely voters, and those over age 60 are represented in voting statistics far greater than their percentage of the population. The white population is mostly over age 40.

To all the young people who are so excited about gay marriage and cannot understand why it would be rejected: Those of us who can easily recall the days before Stonewall, before 1969, remember there was no such thing as a gay liberation movement, must less any vote at all for gay marriage. As late as March 2000, Proposition 22, which stated marriage was only between a man and a woman, passed with 61% of the vote. See http://www.sos.ca.gov/elections/sov/2000_primary/measures.pdf

So, 8 years later, the homophobia was REDUCED BY 9%, By the Governor’s race in 2010, IT SHOULD BE ELIMINATED as many older voters will have died and many of the young people who did not or could not vote this year will be voting in 2010. THE GAY RIGHTS ISSUE IS A GENERATION GAP ISSUE, and the same was true of the integrated marriage issue. California legalized interracial marriages in 1948, and the US Supreme Court did the same in 1967, but it took until around 1988 for it to be generally accepted among the majority of the population. Fortunately, interracial marriage never went before the voters, and to this day, it would fail in many states.

Let us also remember that the California sodomy law was overturned in 1975 and the US Supreme Court did the same in 2003 in Lawrence v. Texas, thus legalizing homosexual relations. In California, we had a state domestic partner law in 1999. This is all comparatively recent, within one generation.

The biggest problem the No on 8 campaign had was youthful inexperience. Most of the participants have no memory of pre-1969, or even pre-1979. A 40-year old remembers the last 30 years. The one county that clearly needed a stronger labor-based campaign, with labor’s slogan, an injury to one is an injury to all, is Los Angeles County, which gave 50.3% of the vote to Prop 8. Without Los Angeles County, the No on 8 campaign could not win. Prop 8 also should have been defeated in Sacramento, Solano, San Luis Obispo and Ventura Counties. It was also close in San Diego and Orange Counties. This writer does not known exactly what kind of campaign took place in Southern California.

It is always easy to look back and say this or that should have been done, and perhaps those suggestions are correct. With the stampede over promoting a very reactionary Democrat for President, namely the millionaire, warmonger, death penalty promoter Barack Obama, whose election may be viewed as historic by some on the basis of the color of his skin, but will soon be viewed as shameful by most as his corporate sponsors and his own warmongering speeches and Senate voting record will prevail, plus the 12 state propositions and the many local propositions and races, there were not a lot of campaign workers left to work on defeating Proposition 8.

It is best to remember the past and continue fighting in the future. If the lawsuits do not toss this reactionary proposition into the dustbin of history, the 2010 election certainly will do so. And it will not be because of the ethnic background of the voters; it will because gay marriage is an idea whose time has finally come.

We'll take just one example.....

"Further proof that we did not have a strong workingclass vote is the fact that Prop 5, the drug treatment instead of prison proposition, failed with 60% voting No and Prop 9, a pro-prison proposition, passed with 53% of the vote. So, despite the fact that Prop 6, another prison proposition, failed with 60% voting No, with 2 reactionary votes out of the 3 prison-issue propositions can only mean that THERE WAS NOT MUCH OF A WORKINGCLASS VOTE, AND THEREFORE, NOT MUCH OF A LATINO OR AFRICAN-AMERICAN VOTE.:

Stop right there. For what reason do you jump from "the results were not what WE would expect from working class voters" to "there mustn't have been a lot of working class workers" (or Blacks, or Latinos)

The conclusion that I draw is very different. It's that you haven't a clue about the preferences of people of the working class, or Blacks, or of Latinos. Let me try to explain something that might be painful for you to face. Material reality is no defined by ideology. You will make absolutely no progress in organizing for your vision of a better world until/unless you learn to distinguish between what "is" and what your ideology tells you "should be".