In the immediate aftermath of Prop 8 many in the liberal and gay communities cried foul at the black community for overwhelmingly voting to pass Prop 8. The blogosphere was generally abuzz with discussions about why Black people are so homophobic or how disappointed they are in the black community. These posts were based on exit polls that showed that around 70% of black people voted for Prop 8, compared with approximately 58% of Latino voters and around 50% of white voters.
Well it turns out the exit polls were wrong. Very wrong. Last week the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force released a report on Prop 8 titled “California’s Proposition 8: What Happened, and What Does the Future Hold?” which conducted a new survey that analyzed the Prop 8 vote in California based on ideology, religion, race, and age. The report found that 58% of African Americans voted for Prop 8. 59% of Latinos, 49% of White people and 48% of Asian people also voted for Prop 8. The report concluded that the elevated rate of support for Prop 8 was directly correlated to the higher frequency of church attendance in the Black and Latino community. People who reported that they attend church service weekly voted for Prop 8 at a rate of 70%. 57% of African Americans and 47% of Latinos attend weekly church service, well above the California average of 43% of the overall population. The report explains other reasons why the exit polls were wrong, and if you’d like to read more, I have linked to it above. It’s an interesting report.
Timothy Kincaid is skeptical of the reports conclusions and methodology. And he might be right. I’m no expert in statistics, but I disagree with him for one very biased reason–I want to believe this report. I felt better after reading this report. It gave me hope. I don’t think that Black people owe the gay community anything in our struggle for civil rights. I acknowledge that the two struggles are very different and that every Black person is entitled to have personal views on this. But 70% is really high, and I simply don’t want to believe that 7 out of 10 Black people in California voted for Prop 8, that this is somehow a Black/Latino vs White/Asian issue.
Most importantly, I think it is futile for the gay community to think of this as a Black/White issue. Demonizing Black or Latino people only makes gay rights an incredibly divisive issue. Even if this report isn’t accurate, isn’t it better to believe that it is? Party identification, ideology and religiosity were the most significant indicators of support for Prop 8. Race may or may not have been a factor, but it is much more productive for the gay and allied community to focus on building bridges with religious communities all over the country than to blame Black people and create stereotypes about how Black people think.
I haven’t read the report yet – just glanced over it briefly. Even without the knowlege from the report, I feel like our focus as a community should be on understanding who voted Yes on Prop 8 and why they did. Whether it’s 58% of African Americans or 70% of church-goers or 59% of Latinos – whatever the percentages are – we need to find ways to, as Navah says, “build bridges” with those communities. At least if these changes are going to happen at the legislative level.
I too want to believe that these numbers are the correct ones and not the numbers that came out in the immediate exit polls. But whichever numbers are correct, the fact remains that stereotyping the people who voted Yes will not help us in the journey toward equal rights. What may help us is figuring out how to better tailor our message such that we can have a meaningful dialogue and possibly swap the results on a future vote.
There are those who believe that conversations won’t help, that minds can’t be changed. I am not in that camp. I do believe that some of those who voted Yes could be convinced to vote No at another point in time. But their minds won’t be changed if no one converses with them.
I don’t think I care about which numbers are correct. There are devastating realizations to be had from either set.
For example, I am rather worried about the church-going crowd feeling legitimated by this latest research. They stuck to their morals, you see? They can continue to see it as a religious issue, rather than a political one, as long as they’re united together. Plus, I don’t know how to reach out to church-goers. There is no logic that can defy “because God says so.” Maybe my issue is that I know too many zealots and I need to try talking with a more rational crowd, but it seems like the fight will be much more difficult when fighting the church rather than fighting a social misunderstanding.
On the other hand, I do appreciate reinforcing the idea that African-Americans and Latinos should not be stereotyped and, definitely, should not be blanketly blamed. (Yes, I just turned blanket into an adverb.) It’s reassuring to know that the people of ethnic minorities I know who voted no aren’t aberrations.
No matter what the numbers say though, the next step is still building bridges, with whomever voted yes. On that point, we all agree.