A new analysis of the voting on Proposition 8 in California has determined that while some people mistakenly voted yes (opposing marriage) when they meant no, even more people voted no when they meant to oppose marriage inclusion.
The data establish that the election wasn’t as close as we thought because of "wrong-way voting." Large numbers of people who opposed "gay marriage" mistakenly voted no. Far fewer people on our side inadvertently opposed the freedom to marry with a yes vote. If we correct for voter intent, our side actually lost the election by eight points rather than four. This means we have a much greater gap to bridge before it will be strategically sound to muster a repeal effort. Remember, in a measure to repeal Prop. 8, there will be no confusion about how to vote. A yes vote will mean yes to marriage for same-sex couples and a no vote will mean no.
This is important for many reasons, especially considering the argument over whether or not the black vote had a major effect on the adoption of Prop. 8. Obviously wrong way voting had just as much of an effect, if not more.
So what caused the No on 8 side to lose by so much?
But no one foresaw that so many people who were assumed to be solidly in our base and who had previously supported us would, by Election Day, shift to oppose the freedom to marry. The Fleischer report reveals that huge numbers of parents with kids under 18 living at home, disproportionately white Democratic mothers — women who initially supported our freedom to marry — left us in droves after the other side invoked the specter of harm to children.
So, white Democratic mothers with kids supported us initially, but bigots convinced them that we will harm their kids so of course they opposed us. I think this is really interesting. Sick, but intriguing. We are trying to prove in court right now that voters for Prop. 8 voted for it because of animus toward gay people and irrational fears that were stoked by the Yes campaign. This seems to prove that even Democratic women were swayed by the completely offensive and baseless ads claiming that we hurt children.
As the article notes, the sad thing is that what actually harms children is the instability of not having a family with married parents, and the fact that the kids have to deal with fights like these in the first place. Importantly, I think, even the Yes side in court admitted that the freedom to marry would help kids and families and make lives better and more stable. The anti-gay side admitted this! But their very own ads swayed Democratic women to vote against marriage. On purpose.
Going forward, researchers state that we need to more effectively counter the claim that we will harm kids. I think videos of their side admitting it in court will do a good job of that. In my opinion we not only need to do that but we need to strike first - we need ads about how it will make kids more stable and happy before they attack.
Also, in my opinion, we need to counter their very effective "it's okay to vote Yes" ads with our own blur-the-lines ads saying "it's okay to vote No." If they can make the claim to religious people who are fairly liberal or otherwise open-minded people that it's not bigotry to vote yes (opposing marriage) then we can claim that it's not anti-religious or immoral or against society to vote no. If they can create uncertainty we don't have to deal in absolutes either.
And we need to do better to tell white Democratic mothers the truth - that the freedom to marry will make families more stable.
A link to the report can be found here.