The dumb and the poor:

The new survey by the Public Policy Institute of California of 2,003 Californians who voted Nov. 4 found significantly less support for Proposition 8 among blacks than had been indicated by exit polls…. But while a majority of non-white voters backed a ban on gay marriage, the key finding in the new survey was that voters’ position on Proposition 8 was determined more by their level of education and income than their race or ethnicity, said PPIC president Mark Baldassare. Among Californians with a high school diploma or less, 69 percent voted for Proposition 8. Among college graduates, 57 percent voted against it.

“Both among whites and non-whites, among college graduates and among upper-income voters, Prop. 8 lost,” Baldassare said. “Among both whites and non-whites, among non-college graduates and lower-income voters, Prop. 8 won. It seems to me that some of what we attributed to race and ethnic differences really had to do with a socioeconomic divide in regard to same-sex marriage.”

Because African-Americans and Latinos tend to have lower incomes and a lower share of college graduates than whites, Baldassare said the racial voting pattern on same-sex marriage was really a reflection of education and income.

78 replies on “Who Passed Prop 8?”

  1. so it’s not because they’re black. it’s because they’re *poor*!

    now is someone going to jump around screaming you’re being a poor-hater?

  2. So all this carrying on about black homophobia and evil black homophobic churches might have actually been misdirected to some extent? Shocking. But, this is what happens when you start freaking out before all the facts are in.

  3. Alternate question: who had no idea how to work effectively with less-educated, less monied voters? Answer: the No on Prop 8 organizers. One thing that used to be a pretty standard feature of gay rights campaigns was a non-elitist message. Harvey Milk, for example, wasn’t a member of the aspiring classes, and didn’t try to limit his appeal to San Francisco’s gay elites – he knew they wouldn’t swing the balance. He genuinely cared about poor people and how they got that way. That’s been forgotten in favor of making fun of poorly-educated voters who have less money. “Join us in mocking how ignorant and probably non-granite-countertopped you’d have to be to vote No on 8.” Well, those folks feel disenfranchised already and are itching to be part of a political power movement. Who got to them? Not us.

  4. @2: I suppose, H. But that would also mean, then, that gays and lesbians can stop beating ourselves up about lousy outreach to communities of color…. right?

  8. It’s the same in education. Kids from lower socioeconomic backgrounds tend to do rather poorly in school. Those kids are often disproportionately African American and Latino. But don’t worry, that faint sense of guilt is easily eliminated by blaming them for their own poverty.

  10. 4: considering that the majority of people of color are also low income and low education i don’t think you can get out of outreach so easily.

  11. What a relief!
    Blacks didn’t vote for Prop 8 because they are homophobic-
    they voted for Prop 8 because they are uneducated and STUPID!
    I feel better now,
    I’m sure they do as well.

  13. Scientists say they’re also less attractive physically, and while we speak in a well-educated manner, they tend to use lowbrow expressions like, “Oh, yeah?” and “Come here a minute.”

  14. Thanks Dan. If you look at the PDF, barely more than 50% of black voters voted for Prop 8, not significantly more than white voters. As I’ve posted in every related post, the one exit poll that said 70% of black voters went for Prop 8 has been horribly incorrect in 2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, and now 2008. At least they didn’t call the election for McCain this time.

  16. What a shock… Now we’re outraged because someone dares point out the poor and poorly educated are more likely to be homophobic, and that those people are more likely to be black or hispanic. Once again the world stops as the politically correct are horrified by the real world.

    Next shocking news item: Water is wet.

  17. Do you know if 100% of gay people voted against Prop. 8?

    When I asked one of my “gay friends” (I just call him “friend,” he just happens to be gay) what he thought about Prop. 8, he said “I don’t care, I never want to get married.” He’s only 22 so he may change his mind later if he meets the right guy, but if you can’t get 100% of the “gay” vote, how do you expect to get more than 50% of the “straight” vote?

    I think that the next go around in California, and I would like Washington State to legalize gay marriage pronto too, is that you need to stress to the voters that no “Special rights” are being asked for. You just want the same rights that every other adult has the right to.

    I think the argument against marriage equity is stupid. It is impossible for anyone to argue against it without bringing God into it. Why this hasn’t already been settled, in favor of marriage equity, by the Supreme Court baffles me.

    Oh, and calling it “Marriage Equity” rather than “Gay Marriage” might male for better P.R.

  18. #5 is pretty accurate, although I’d say it’s more like:
    dumb & poor = clings to tradition, rituals, superstitions, closed minded
    intelligent = open minded, embracing change, facts, science
    For the most part, anyway

  19. @2: So all this carrying on about black homophobia and evil black homophobic churches might have actually been misdirected to some extent? Shocking. But, this is what happens when you start freaking out before all the facts are in.

    So all this carrying on about gay racism and evil gay activists ignoring non-whites might have actually been misdirected to some extent? Shocking. But, this is what happens when you start freaking out before all the facts are in.

  24. @17 I doubt I’ll ever get married either, but sometimes we need to look beyond our own selfish little world and support the right thing for other people. Your friend sounds like a selfish douche with some sour grapes issues.

  27. Out reach Baby out reach. What is enough? Ten calls? Ten thousand calls? Ten million calls? What’s enough out reach? And since when are civil rights a matter of out reach? The WHOLE process of voting on Civil Rights is screwed up and no one seems to be mentioning that basic fact.

  29. @28

    Wow. Blacks are the only dumb and poor people in California?

    UGH. The racist bullshit slog commenters have been spewing lately is really fucking despicable.

    You didn’t notice that it said Latinos voted in favor of it in higher percentages than other minorities? I don’t want to cast blame on an another minority group but the racist bashing of blacks on this site really needs to stop.

  30. @26, they didn’t report the exact number because this is a somewhat scientific poll (unlike the exit poll) and only 6% of Californians are black, causing a small sample size.

    Latinos (61%) were more likely than whites (50%) to vote yes; and 57 percent of Latinos, Asians, and blacks combined voted yes. (Samples sizes for Asians and blacks are too small to report separately.)

    Probably around 52-54%, which is consistent with most polling amongst black voters before the election.

  31. @27, that’s a good point. No on 8 might consider make that a focus moving forward. They have a solemn front page photo on their website right now, of a pale family with white shirts and khakis and a pink blanket over their shoulders, walking away from the camera down a white sand Cali beach at sunset.

  32. @10, “the majority of people of color are also low income”? Uh, no. Only about a quarter of African-Americans are poor. It’s a higher percentage than whites, but it’s far from a majority.

    Outreach doesn’t just mean ten million phone calls. It means knowing and understanding the people you’re trying to reach out to, and what their concerns are. The gay organizations that take the spotlight have never given a shit about poor people or black people — notwithstanding the fact that there are poor gays and black gays as well as the smart and stylish ones with their tiny dogs and $600 eyeglasses.

  35. Thanks, Dan. In 4 words, you just did a stellar job demonstrating the Achilles heel of liberalism – that overeducated wealthy liberals think poor people who don’t have advanced degrees are inferior. Why should poor people support issues defined by people who think that?

  36. Well hasn’t it already been said that the more education one has, the more progressive they become? Hasn’t it been said that democrats and liberals usually have a higher level of education than their conservative and republican counter parts. Yes, I am a hater.

  37. There is definitely a problem with homophobia in the African-American community, but given the actual numbers of voters in that community their net affect on the outcome of Prop 8 was negligible.

    It is no surprise that those with less education supported Prop 8 in larger numbers than those with higher levels of education. Statistics show that there is a correlation between education and tolerance. Also, those who don’t know as much about the world are easier targets for right-wing propaganda and are much less likely to seek out truth for themselves. They lack the intellectual curiosity that drives the rest of us to actually find a factual basis for our opinions.

    This is not to say that poor people are “inferior”. Rather, they are misinformed and misled. They need to be educated on why issues like Prop 8 should never have been on the ballot in the first place. They also need to understand how successful passage and implementation of Prop 8 could lead to future ballot propositions that would take some of their rights away, too.

  38. Further proof that divisive talk, Mr Savage, is counter-productive….
    But as we learned in Iraq War lead-up, you’re simply a reactionary. As Lakoff puts it, you’re reflexive, not reflective. You let your emotions guide you (in this case anger over 8).
    Time to reboot, buddy. You’re a leader of sorts to the gay community, and you’re doing a lousy job….

  39. 35 — overeducated wealthy people KNOW that poor people without advanced degrees are ‘low-information voters’. and mostly support stupid shit like prop 8, and the GOP. so they earn the dumb & poor tag.

    but i agree that saying it that way on the record always gets peeps like dan into trouble.

  40. We like to think that things like tolerance, open-mindedness, critical thinking etc., are things that some of us are just naturally born with, but they ain’t. The classist and racial restrictions on access to education CREATES ignorance in people who are not given the tools to combat it. You want a revolution? Expose people to ideas.

  42. You know what Dan, you’re looking too far into this. Fuck you, I never went to college because it’s far too expensive and I’m going to get anything out of it, yet there’s no way in hell I’d ever support this amendment. Myself and several other of my high school buddies also never went to college and yet we all know there’s no reason to treat anyone different because they like it up the ass. Fuck you for calling me and my friends dumb and poor, your target here are biggots and uninformed voters, not high school diploma wielding poor people. Fuck you.

  43. 1: I’m not going to jump around and say “poor hater” because I always saw it as a class thing, and I hope John understands now that it’s not about race, but about poverty and ignorance.

  44. @41… Dan supported the Iraq invasion, which was very reactionary in the conservative political sense. (see preemptive war vs. UN war treaties…) And, there are multiple definitions in the english language. Here:

    Re*ac”tion*a*ry, a. Being, causing, or favoring reaction; as, reactionary movements.

  45. @5 describes my town exactly – 50K in the Central Valley, Tulare County, where the only City Council in the whole state voted to urge the population to pass Prop 8, inthe name of God no less.

  46. @44 Dan’s support of the Iraq war was credulous but hardly reactionary.

    But you seem to have special powers of language that allow you imbue the word “reactionary” with multiple meanings so maybe you have a point within the context of your own special language.

  47. #17 – you all did notice that in Seattle we marched for Marriage Equality – better message

    Banner was printed and paid for by SGN …working with ERW

  50. There is a reason why Democrats (and other Left-ists) are called a “Liberal or Intellectual Elite. Because they are!

  51. Got to be tough that you can’t blame black people any more, Rush. Happy day that you can now pick on the poor and uneducated, you divisive ass.

  52. I wonder if the corolation of education and voting holds for the elderly as well. Anyone have any statistics showing if the elderly are less educated than average? Possibly being raised pre-Stonewall is an independent cause of homophobia, but possibly education explains it all.

  54. @53. It depends on what they’re disagreeing with me about. Don’t like 90s Grunge? Don’t care for Deadwood? Oh well, art’s subjective, different tastes, etc.

    Hate Brie? I don’t get it, but I’ll happily serve you smoked Gouda instead.

    Fiscal Conservative? I can respect that, though I disagree.

    Against Affirmative Action? This is tougher. I’d like to hear your reasons. But I can accept that this is a volatile topic where both sides make valid points.

    Against marriage equality? Bush-supporter? Anti-choice? Member of Christian Identity? Peleo-Conservative? For Intelligent Design? You’re stupid or evil. Maybe both.

  55. @54
    Let’s hear it for choice-
    hear! hear!
    Women should be free to do what they choose with their bodies.
    If they choose to engage in behavior that leaves them pregnant they (and their special friend) need to belly up to the bar and accept the responsibilities that go with their choices.
    When a totally innocent human (and a yet to be born child is as innocent as it gets in our species) is slaughtered by it’s mother and a physian who is sworn to do no harm then, I agree, it truely is EVIL.

  56. Various responsibilities from which a woman can choose if she gets pregnant:

    1. Have the baby
    a. care for it
    b. let a relative care for it until some future time when she is able to
    c. give the baby up for adoption

    2. Have an abortion

  57. @54
    Let’s hear it for marriage equality-
    hear! hear!
    Everyone should be treated the same when it comes to marriage.
    Me and all my buddies, in a show of solidarity with our little lavendar brothers, have sworn not to marry guys, because, you know, you guys can’t.
    One for all and all for one, I say!
    It is a huge sacrifice, but no thanks are needed.
    really.

  58. @57. What, no support for your lavender sisters?

    I would think if you respect marriage equality, you’d not marry women either, correct?

    So! No marriage for you! Right?

  60. @56
    Some choices are wrong.
    Some choices are evil.
    Killing a child you created because it’s existance is inconvenient to you is monstrously evil.

  65. Actually, the polls & map graphics in the LA Times right after the election were pretty accurate. They didn’t figure in the black vote, but the high percentage of Latinos & the educational/income disparity was noted right away.

    IMhumbleO: Now that we are starting to get some better ideas about who voted for Prop 8, we should be busily formulating a plan about what to do NEXT. How do we as a community engage & educate folks who were pro Prop 8? We can’t let this issue fade away. People’s attention spans are short.

    This is clearly a moment of teetering on the edge of massive change. Historically, society resists massive change, even when it is it society’s long term interests. People are scared.

    But we’re more angry. Anger is a 100% necessary & logical response to being crapped on & discriminated against. Fine, we’re here, we’re queer, give us the damn wedding. As much as we all wrote about, went to & threw our fists up in the air at the protests, let’s take that energy to the next step. We’ve defined who it is who voted against gay marriage. Rather than scream, I think it’s much more important to not let the moment pass, & to seize what venues we have to communicate in, to get these folks to see more reason before the next time this comes before a court..or gets voted on. We have a moment to win hearts & minds. Why squander it by pointing more fingers, you know? If people are uneducated, educate them.

    Are any of you all going to be doing Day Without a Gay? I haven’t seen it discussed too much. It’s an event run by jointheimpact, the same folks who were the online force behind those recent protests & marches:

    http://daywithoutagay.org/

    Only if a massive amount of people participate in this will it has any real financial impact. Especially w/ the economy as tight as it is, surely in the pocketbook is where to hit ’em. & yes, I know..Christmas is only 15 DAYS away..but one day, one day of not buying anything, not even a latté – surely we can all go one day without spending. There’s a light up the night event & food drive going on, too:

    http://jointheimpact.com/

    Whoo, while I’m up here on my soapbox, are you all spending as much time writing/calling you all of your elected representatives, as y’are bitching here & places like it? ’cause I am. Just wrote Governor Patterson yesterday.

    *hops down* Ugh, back to woooooork.

  66. @34:
    Kind of. We know 61% of self-identified Latinos voted for Prop 8 based on this poll, and 57% of all Latinos, blacks and Asians did. Pre- and post-election polls show Asians voted similarly to whites, which means blacks voted for the measure by about 52-54%. It’s consistent with almost all other polling that shows blacks are only a couple percentage points above whites against gay marriage.

  67. @4, Dan Savage:
    @2: I suppose, H. But that would also mean, then, that gays and lesbians can stop beating ourselves up about lousy outreach to communities of color…. right?

    Ah, clever, Savage, but . . . not so fast. Since when does a group have to be the linchpin of an election to be part of an organizing strategy? Don’t you actually want to do outreach in black communities because it can — however incrementally — build your movement? And what happened to your concern about black gays and lesbians and how much they suffer due to homophobia in black communities and racism in white gay communities. Don’t you think more effective outreach might help them feel more comfortable at the intersection? Nice try, but I suggest you try harder. Strive for some intellectual honesty this time.

  68. Let’s stop with the scattered poll number countings…. Point is, this is about civil rights. Gay rights should be largely accepted nationwide as an American ideal…. Freedom for all US citizens…. We need to reach out to each and every community and re-frame this debate!
    What we are taking about is LIBERTY!
    Also, divisiveness on this issue has no role on our end. No more name calling, no more singling out one demographic over the next.
    We must be positive and show optimism and strength.
    We got much to do. No more wussy-whining!!

  69. Ok, so 61% percent of Latinos supported Prop 8. Combined with both Asians and blacks it becomes 57%. Which means black support was far less that 70% and at the very least lower than 57%. We are probably looking at 2 or 3 points higher than whites(50%). After this whole fiasco, I wonder how much we set back the movement in the black community. I see 52% as progress(61% not so much but just means we have work to do), though now it probably won’t last after all this racism and blaming going around.

  70. Okay, I was too excited to have my say to actually read all the comments, so apologies if this is redundant. But it just goes to show you that education actually indoctrinates people with liberal and immoral beliefs.

    There.

    Was I the first to say it? Was I? Was I?

  72. When you have one of the most religous, biblically conservative minority groups in the country, vote against a gay marriage ban by nearly 50% without shat in the way of outreach, I call that major progress. African Americans are far more religous than White Americans, yet according to this poll, they only favored Prop 8 by a few points more than whites in California. Now, imagine if there was some actual outreach done, Prop 8 most likely would have lost amongst African Americans in California. Though, it probably would have still passed, it would have shown tremendous progress in our movement. Now, I fear that all these loud-mouthed racist queens out there have ruined things for us all. Next time please keep your mouths shut!

  73. @42
    like you, i can’t believe these (self-sorted) ‘educated’ people are confusing ‘education’ (*and* intelligence) with schooling.

    the exit pollsters, according to this excerpt, asked about years/levels of ‘schooling’ but then replaced – like dan did – the amount of schooling a person suffered directly for ‘education’ and/or intelligence when they went to analyze this data. here’s a news flash: ‘dumb’ in this usage is more equal to the opposite of ‘smart’ than it is to the opposite of ‘schooled’. didn’t know that? how many years of schooling did you get? does your answer mean anything?

    who’s paying for the schools? and by what means did that school board decide what you were going to be learning while you were there? if you don’t know either of those things, you weren’t ‘educated’, you were ‘schooled’. and if you DO know those things, you may have been schooled or not, but you didn’t necessarily get an education there.

    i don’t have a college degree. i’m poor as all shit. but i’m not dumb enough to think i would have learned anything the school boards weren’t selling … if i kept paying them money to go there. i live in the ghetto with other poor people, which is a much more diverse crowd than the white educated fuck-heads in the west hills who think their degrees make them smarter than me. there’s correlation and causation, and the exit pollsters don’t seem to know the difference. wonder what their level of schooling was.

    with that out of the way, here’s how i can tell the difference between a civil right and a religious tradition, because when you compare the two things directly, it’s pretty fucking obvious: religious traditions are created and kept alive because groups of people attending their churches want them to be – whereas civil rights are recognized and honored because the law created by a legislative body somewhere in existence either explicitly says they must be honored – or it doesn’t say so. sexual orientation has (fairly recently) changed from being viewed by sober society as a mental illness (who wouldn’t feel mentally ill after a lifetime of prosecution for just being who you are?) to being recognized as a benign variation on the normal sexual continuum. now that we’re coming into the light, this variation simply needs to be added to the quid pro quos under equal protection. it would be spectacular if we could pass the ERA while we’re at it, but i’ll try not to get too hopeful.

    this whole discussion of who voted which way and why is so useless – why even dissect this? it’s a stupid snipe hunt – unless you’re only planning to engage the most easily persuade-able 5% who voted against your interests last time, gay-civil-rights organizers. wasn’t that the rough margin, 5%? why don’t you take the advice @17 there and clarify your message? the protests since 4 november focusing on ‘equity’ rather than ‘this one thing, marriage’ have been the most persuasive – mostly because it’s clear, simple and accurate. you’re not fighting for the right to get married, many gay people are ambivalent about marriage or plain don’t care. they *do* care about civil rights, as most of us do. and even (sigh) poor and un-schooled people will understand, sympathize with, and get behind equality than will get behind particular skirmishes like marriage certificates for a group of people they think they don’t come into contact with. (most are wrong about not being in contact, but until the average joe and jane Gay finally get fed up and march in the streets *along with* the crazy rainbow-flag-flyers we see every year at pride parades, a lot of people won’t be aware that they are voting for and against rights for their neighbors, their co-workers, their mail-carriers and their baristas, their bus drivers, preachers and entertainers.) you’re fighting for civil rights, frame it that way. marriage isn’t the only thing you’re being denied under that banner, it’s just the hottest flame on the grill post-prop-8.

  74. So now poor black church people are “STUPID” because a lot of them supported Proposition 8? Same racist garbage in a different form! White gay men who normally couldnt care less about black people (except viewing black men as mandingo-fantasy sex objects and not real human beings) suddenly feel the masses of black people should just come around and support them? Im black and gay and when i see the racism on these blogs, its hard for ME to be on your side! Some of you will never understand that for those prop 8 supporters, its a RELIGIOUS issue,not a “human rights” issue! I guess since YOU arent religious, you cant imagine how OTHER people can be (I grew up in church, and even though I no longer think the bible is literal truth, I can understand people who do)!
    The masses of black people are not nearly as “homophobic” as some of you think – but black gays have always viewed the white gay male community as patronizing and racist, and these blogs are proof of that!
    You certainly wont gain any support from those church people with your negative bigoted racist attitudes!

  75. Honestly, I think what troubles me most about Slog is how often the original posts are distorted and misinterpreted.

    I don’t know if it’s just shameless intellectual dishonesty or the fact that far too many people lack back critical reading skills.

    Either way it’s fucking depressing.

  76. Karma is biting me in the butt. Keeps me humble.

    “back” = basic

    Kind of hard to read my posts “critically” when I don’t even proofread my own typos. Sorry about that.

  77. i still think the most mind-blowing statistic is the 82 whopping percent of Republicans who voted for Prop 8. That’s like…almost all of them. It means if you run into a Republican in California, there is an 82% chance that they have some problem with gays.

    And those are CALIFORNIAN Republicans. Chances are, these are more “liberal” Repugs.

    82% is a huge number for an election.

  78. It was completely irresponsible for Dan to run with that first headline “Black Homophobia” and now he can’t bring himself to acknowledge he was wrong.

    That’s dishonest and confirms despite the frank talk about his personal life, he’s got little integrity where it matters.

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