Black Support For Prop. 8 Called Exaggeration

Reports of overwhelming African American support for Proposition 8's ban on same-sex marriage were exaggerated in exit polls, a new look at the November election results has found.

"Party identification, age, religiosity and political view had much bigger effects than race, gender or having gay and lesbian family and friends," said Patrick Egan of New York University, who wrote the report with Kenneth Sherrill of Hunter College of New York for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Read the whole story here.

Comments

[Tanyars5]

it was taken off the front pages!!!!!!!

[Broughton]

Huffingtonpost needs to be shut down. I can't believe they put so many post about Prop 8 on there Website when everyone was accusing Black People for passing Prop 8, Now that the accusation been proving wrong, Huffingtonpost takes the post Down.

I will never post on the website again. WOW

[AnotherTry]

It hasn't been proven wrong at all, just spun.

[Broughton]

I wonder if the msm is reporting in prop 8 updates?

[Celldumceen]

Yet another example that clearly shows that gay whites can be just as racist as the straight ones! I read comments posted by gays blaming the black church for Prop 8 when it was the Mormon Church that was the driving force behind getting it on the ballot! Not to mention the fact that half the whites and most Hispanics voted for Prop 8 also! But somehow gays didnt bash Hispanics for that fact! Race trumps everything!

[naeldwyck]

Hendrik Hertzberg of the New Yorker had it figured out even with the original exit polls that it was not African-Americans who tipped the balance:

From http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/12/01/081201taco_talk_hertzberg?printable=true

"Some conservative commentators, who didn"t have much else to gloat about, dwelt lingeringly on what they evidently regarded as the upside of the huge, Obama-sparked African-American turnout. "It was the black vote that voted down gay marriage," Bill O"Reilly, of Fox News, insisted triumphantly"and, it turns out, wrongly. If exit polling is to be believed, seventy per cent of California"s African-American voters did indeed vote yes on Prop. 8, as did upward of eighty per cent of Republicans, conservatives, white evangelicals, and weekly churchgoers. But the initiative would have passed, barely, even if not a single African-American had shown up at the polls."

[sweetwhine]

What I find so interesting is that as soon as they blamed the blacks for Prop 8, the gays were all over it. It really makes you wonder.

[vote-obama]

the damage has been done with the original lies that were told, so now they figure it is okay to go ahead and tell the truth hoping that nobody is paying attention.

[Tanyars5]

I have to leave but will check this thread tommorow and see what happens to it.....it will probably be hard to find etc.........
BO will be president in 12 days!!!!!!!

[jdmba]

You can find it by going to your own profile or clicking on "I'm a Fan of [username]"

[harriettubman]

Who cares about this report now? The MSM wanted to BLAME someone and they did, erroneously. Blacks didn't buy airtime to protest this law. They didn't pour millions into a campaign against CA gays. Sure some blacks defeated Prop 8 with their vote but they did so right along with whites, Asians, Hispanics, Mormons and so forth. That vote clincher was not a done deal for the black people of CA.

With the venom seen since the vote, we have seen just how intolerant some gay people are too.

[iwantpie]

co-sign.

[diogenes1967]

Our oppression, by and large, is nowhere near as extreme as blacks", and we insult them when we make facile comparisons between our plights. Gay people have more resources than blacks had in the 1960s. We are embedded in the power structures of every institution of this society. While it is illegal in this country to fire an African-American without cause and in most places it"s still legal to fire a gay person for being gay, we are more likely to have informal means of recourse than black people have. Almost all gay people have the choice of passing. Very few black people have that option. Of course, we shouldn"t have to make that choice, and our civil rights struggle is about making sure that we don"t have to."

[diogenes1967]

This piece rocks and The Advocate did this author a disservice with that cover. Although I can understand them being drama queens.

[jdmba]

I agree with this.. I just dont understand why it was necessary to bring the Black struggle into it... Why say Gay is the new Black, if gay oppression has been happening for such a long time?

[Tanyars5]

lazy leadership

[harriettubman]

They've been trying to find some past national cause to equate their fight with. It's understandable, but incorrect, they would attach it to the civil rights era. This is something new that can't be equated with anything this country has ever witnessed before. When a each state approves their marriage, it will be a precedent

[harriettubman]

When MLK fought for civil rights he fought for the rights of every oppressed person in this country. He and his team didn't go out and pick and choose which ones could get on the bus. Everybody could get on the bus. The ensuing success of that era enabled Hispanics, Asians and foreigners to ride on the coat tails of that legislation and some of them never fought for that right a day in their lives and don't even think of it today.

[diogenes1967]

Harvey Milk did the same thing. Harvey Milk fought for rent control, protested apartheid in South africa, and resisted development plans in San Francisco. He fought for causes far beyond gay rights.

[diogenes1967]

"News reports mostly showed the same types of images the media insists on using when covering gay pride parades. A marching band played show tunes -- "If My Friends Could See Me Now" -- and a drag queen screamed, "The problem with living in a bubble is that bubbles burst!" She was fierce, and I was moved, but I also wondered why she was the one on the news that night, why this movement still doesn"t have a Martin Luther King Jr., a telegenic, brilliant spokesperson to whom all of America can relate. The dedication of movement organizers has brought us a long way, but we are now in desperate need of a willing leader with solid media sense, a palpable inner core, an ability to navigate the game of hardball politics, and the balls to step forward and be our public face."

[diogenes1967]

I heard abt. this article. The editors of the Advocate did this writer, Michael Joseph Gross, a real disservice and injustice.

"To blame this loss on black people would be a terrible mistake, and it would only increase enmity between gays and blacks. African-American leaders in the Congressional Black Caucus -- particularly Barbara Lee -- and state leaders such as former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown worked hard on our behalf; many of them were quicker to come to our defense than their white peers. And they did this even though white gay people have never, en masse and in force, showed up to support them and their issues. The work of our black allies created an immense reservoir of opportunity and possibility for the movement going forward. It should not be squandered for the cheap satisfaction of finding a scapegoat."

Let's see if they Huff posts this!

[KaLaPa111]

I figured that 70% figure was bull all along ... too bad I'm already too turned off by the whole ordeal to care. You see, when you starting hurling racial insults and slurs, you're not only hurting the individual you're mad at, you're hurting and angering an entire group.

It has become crystal clear to me that the LGBT community doesn't think much of Black people, so no worries, folks! I will keep my beliefs (I am a full supporter of gay rights), my vote (I don't live in Cali but I would've voted 'hellz no' on Prop 8), and my donation (I actually made a contribution to No on Prop 8 ... it wasn't much but I could certainly use that money now) to myself.

[SeanGardner]

Like you, I don't live in CA, but would have voted a resounding no on PROP 8.

But I believe blacks in CA are owed an explanation about why African-Americans (gay and straight) who participated in anti-PROP 8 rallies were treated harshly by "some" white gays, and were even called the N-word: I love Pam Spaulding's piece right here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pam-spaulding/the-n-bomb-is-dropped-on_b_142363.html.

[jdmba]

I think many of us feel that way. I do live in Cali and I was adamantly against Prop 8. But you never see me on the news, and no pundit puts a microphone in my face.

[harriettubman]

Exactly!!! And hurl they did. I now consider it a "white movement".

[oafishcad]

And doing so deny the rights of minority gyas every bit as much. Convenient.

[diogenes1967]

And it's not.

[SeanGardner]

The "blame the black people" narrative was created to cover up for the fact that the self-appointed white gay leaders of the anti-PROP 8 efforts didn't campaign vigorously in communities of color. They simply didn't. They were out-organized, out-hustled, and out-maneuvered by White Mormons who did intensive retail politicking at churches, restaurants, schools, houses, grocery stores, apartments, parks, and other places in the black community.

The Mormons phone-banked, emailed, postal-mailed, and visited places repeatedly on the same day. I know lots of people all over Los Angeles County. Friends of mine who live in the mostly white parts of the county got phone calls and visits from the anti-PROP 8 crowds. But folks I know in the mostly black and Latino parts got virtually nothing from them, and instead saw Mormons walking around in their communities.

All of this begs the question: did the self-appointed white leadership of the anti-PROP 8 effort not aggressively target black and Latino votes because they figured they would vote against the measure, or because they figured they wouldn't need them to get it defeated?

[jdmba]

Excellent post

[dct1999]

Excellent points.

[sweetwhine]

That's exactly what I said. They didn't go into the communities of color at all. And the first thing they do is blame the blacks. I never believed it for a second!! It almost sounds like many of them voted for Obama only to further their views. If you read some of the post, it's crystal clear what their priorities are. Shame on some of you. You need to go watch "MILK" and learn something. He was a true leader. You better thank your lucky stars Obama is in office. You'll have a fighting chance if you act right. Learn from the past people. It's not just about you, it's about all of us. You don't get that, then you'll never get what you want. That's a promise.

[iwantpie]

Excellent post. My thought is they (lgbt) assume since California is a blue state it wouldn't pass with the Blacks and Latinos voting for Obama. But, they would find out that Blacks and Latinos don't support gay marriage.

[kutkreata]

Great post. As a Black woman living in the South (TN), I have to say that the r* ac* ism coming from Cali from the White gay community just amazes me (& yes I've been to many parts of Cali & have relatives living in LA now). The White gay community really showed its true colors loud & clear.

[vote-obama]

i guess that freedom of speech thing they like to talk about does not apply to articles that exposes MSM prejudice against blacks.

[Tanyars5]

there was one article about the "black is the new gay " and sthe writer was against the term and that article was gone before it was up.........I couldn't find it anywhere...what was the deal with that?

[diogenes1967]

No, there was this article in the Advocate (which is quite good I hear) but the Cover of it said "Gay is the New Black" with a black cover. Stupid, just stupid. Besides, nobody reads the Advocate but queens...

[SeanGardner]

But I love Pam Spaulding's piece right here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/pam-spaulding/the-n-bomb-is-dropped-on_b_142363.html. It explains how African-Americans (gay and straight) who participated in anti-PROP 8 rallies were treated harshly by "some" white gays, and were even called the N-word

The "blame the black people" narrative was created to cover up for the fact that the self-appointed white gay leaders of the anti-PROP 8 efforts didn't campaign vigorously in communities of color. They simply didn't. They were out-organized, out-hustled, and out-maneuvered by White Mormons who did intensive retail politicking at churches, restaurants, schools, houses, grocery stores, apartments, parks, and other places in the black community.

The Mormons phone-banked, emailed, postal-mailed, and visited places repeatedly on the same day. I know lots of people all over Los Angeles County. Friends of mine who live in the mostly white parts of the county got phone calls and visits from the anti-PROP 8 crowds. But folks I know in the mostly black and Latino parts got virtually nothing from them, and instead saw Mormons walking around in their communities.

All of this begs the question: did the self-appointed white leadership of the anti-PROP 8 effort not aggressively target black and Latino votes because they figured they would vote against the measure, or because they figured they wouldn't need them to get it defeated? Who knows.