Not very hopeful

[mdlbear]

Earlier this morning I was willing to believe that I was just a cynical old morning person who shouldn't be allowed to post about politics after dark. I don't think that now.

What disturbed me, and still disturbs me, about the Religious Right's apparent victory on Prop 8 is the signal it sends to them: that even in "liberal" California, they can get over half the electorate to vote with them if they just pour in enough hatred, fear, lies, and money. That over half of my fellow citizens really are religious bigots.

Over the course of a couple of months, the Religious Right turned support for eliminating the right of gays to marry from about 30% to over 50%.

If they'd lost, there would be some hope that their grip on power, on the Republican party, might be weakened. Now they know for certain that they can get control back if they can just tap into enough fear and hatred. That over 50% of the people still believe that it's ok to deny civil rights to gays. Black people won their civil rights because most of the churches in the country believed that they deserved them. Blacks and Latinos voted in favor of Prop 8.

The next couple of elections are going to be very ugly.

I would pray, to whatever gods there may be, to save us from their followers. But I don't believe that it would work.

Comments

[tagryn]

CA went 61% Obama. That's a huge margin.

Looking at the numbers, what it came down to is the Prop. 8 activists didn't make their case well enough to convince enough Obama voters: that differential of about 9% of the CA electorate who were Obama voters but who also voted for Prop. 8 was the difference, right there. You can chalk it up to bias, or hate, or whatever, but its hard to conclude that they were mostly Religious Right nuts after they also voted in the first African American president. If they're open-minded enough to have done that, they were probably open to being persuaded on Prop. 8 as well. That they weren't indicates the argument wasn't made convincing enough for them, not that they would never vote that way. Note that the gap got closed from 62% support for Prop. 22 in '00 to 52% in '08. That's a pretty significant shift in support, and I doubt that its because 10% of the voters moved from being "religious bigots" to supporters.

[mdlbear]

As I said, black and Latino voters, who mostly went with Obama, mostly voted for Prop 8. They are also mostly followers of religions that are strongly opposed to gay rights and the rights of women -- you may also have seen how close Prop 4, parental notification, came to winning.

The only thing that may save us is that the religious right is still somewhat split between the parties.

[aerowolf.livejournal.com]

Not just blacks and latinos, but also the Koreans and Chinese and Japanese who were targeted in their own areas, on their own TV stations, without explaining or expressing what the situation really was.

In a lot of ways, this is much more about strategy and willingness to go out and communicate than to sit back and give money, to let someone else do it. :/

[mdlbear]

"still somewhat split between the parties"

...and still inclined to vote for candidates they generally agree with. But that's unstable: if the RR can apply enough hatred, fear, falsehood, and cash to convince their dupes that a candidate is in favor of something their dupes are religiously opposed to, the RR can win.

Take it easy on that "religious bigot" phrase

[capplor.livejournal.com]

Some of us remember that the second greatest commandment was to "love your neighbor as yourself" (and the first greatest has nothing to do with taking away legal protections from your neighbor).

Re: Take it easy on that "religious bigot" phrase

[aerowolf.livejournal.com]

Except possibly "freedom of religion"...

Re: Take it easy on that "religious bigot" phrase

[capplor.livejournal.com]

Ok, there's inuunctions to try to convert everyone in the world, but that isn't in the top 10, and any idiot knows (yes, I know whom that excludes) that a swordpoint conversion isn't a conversion.

Re: Take it easy on that "religious bigot" phrase

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

The phrase works fine, so long as the two words aren't treated as identical. There are religious bigots. There are nonreligious bigots. There are religious people who aren't bigots. There are nonreligious people who aren't bigots. So long as one is clear that 'bigot' is not being defined as 'religious', talking about the subcategory of humanity which is both is a valid topic.

Re: Take it easy on that "religious bigot" phrase

[capplor.livejournal.com]

True enough, but it was starting to look like it was meant to be redundant.

Re: Take it easy on that "religious bigot" phrase

[mdlbear]

Was meant to have "religious" as an adjective, modifying "bigot" as a noun; that meaning was so ingrained that I didn't realize until now that it might be possible to misconstrue it.

Re: Take it easy on that "religious bigot" phrase

[mdlbear]

Well put. Thanks.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

Don’t get discouraged. I personally remember a time when gay people did not march in their own gay pride parades—they found someone else in to “trade” with – each marched in the other’s city. Visibility with reduced risk of losing jobs and rejection by family members. Angel tells me of the standard “p-town marriage”, where people had an opposite-gender legal-spouse, and then after dark, people walked down or across the street to spend the night with their heart-spouse.

Yet today, gay people are living openly in their relationships, demanding that their families be legally recognized and protected, getting and keeping jobs while openly gay, being ordained and made bishops while openly gay, and being elected to public offices as gay people. And a few lucky ones are managing to get married to their heart-spouse. Others are able to have a civil union or at least a domestic partnership.

I think about the stories of Susan B. Anthony and other women who worked their entire adult lives to get women the vote, and passed on that fight to women who didn’t see the start of that fight, because they died before it happened.

And I think about how long it’s been between the Emancipation Proclamation and electing a man of African descent to be our President.

And I think about all the polls, which show that the younger voters do believe in marriage equality. And that mayor who ran for office opposing gay marriage, but came out and made a public statement for it about a week ago (filkertom has a link to that speech, if you didn’t catch it, in his LJ).

If we keep reaching out to people, I think this is a battle that can be won in my lifetime. It will be harder, now that some states, including mine and yours, will need their constitutions fixed, but I believe that it can happen. More to the point, I believe it will happen, IF we don’t give up.

[artbeco.livejournal.com]

Thanks for saying this, it gives me hope too.

[mdlbear]

I think I'm a bit older than you -- it may not be in my lifetime, though there's hope.

If not, I'll gladly pass you my flamethrower torch.

[wyld-dandelyon.livejournal.com]

As much as I appreciate the offer (and the imagery), I suspect a candle will work better. White for peace, for weddings, for hope, for respect, for new beginnings.

A setback

[mia-mcdavid.livejournal.com]

I know, and it's ugly. But, look, when we were young, did we believe that a Black president would be elected in our lifetimes? When we were young, many states did not treat them like full human beings!

Gay rights started later than civil rights, and it's frustrating that Prop. 8 won, but they can't be held back forever. It will take time, but we will get there.

I pray it in Christ's loving name.

[pocketnaomi.livejournal.com]

cyan_blue has a good post on exactly why and how they managed to turn support from about 30% to over 50% in a few months. It's not basically about a majority of people being religious bigots, or at least it's not as cut and dried as that. It's mostly about not effectively communicating our message to people who'd never seriously thought about it before.

This ties in closely with an article I read a few months ago about the mechanisms in the brain's memory functions which link up to belief or disbelief. Bottom line: we need to spend more time, money and packaging-for-the-memory talking to people than the opposition. It's that simple. For people who don't start out with a personal involvement in an issue, what they hear repeated, they will remember, and what they will remember, they will believe at least enough to feel more comfortable with voting for it. We can use that as effectively as the Religious Right can; Obama certainly used it. But we need to get it done.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

I also feel very discouraged.

But evil has not won for all time, just for now.

And as John Scalzi pointed out, those destroyed marriages make a very potent symbol to point to when the RR start spouting nonsense about "defending marriage"

It's hard to fix. We may not be able to fix it within our lifetimes. But civilization is where people plant trees in whose shade they know they will not live to sit.

[mdlbear]

I like your last sentence very much. Thank you.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

It is not original, much as I wish I could claim it. I don't remember where I read it first, though.