So, this article in Rolling Stone is the best write up I’ve seen about what went wrong with Prop 8.
I’ve been uncomfortable with the “blame the black people” backlash. It seems that what went wrong is the arrogance of the people who ran “No on 8” and their failure to earn the votes, not just from the minority communities but from everyone. From the article:
The No on Prop 8 campaign, meanwhile, was oblivious to the formidable field operation that the other side was mounting. Worse, its executive committee refused to include leaders of top gay and lesbian grass-roots organizations, which deprived them of an army of willing foot soldiers.
MassEquality, by contrast, was a coalition formed BY grass-roots organizations. What a mess! The article is a great read though.
is that we have a majority population of anti-gay bigots in this country. every state such amendments have been voted on, they have passed. 30 for 30. why did anyone think california would be different? the failure is much bigger than any one campaign strategy or any one voting block.
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p>considering that the amendment passed by only 2 percent, it might be said that the campaign did an excellent job. the margin has usually been 10% or more in other states. the truth is that there is no way to know what might have happened if the campaign were run differently. at least, i don’t have that crystal ball. do you?
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p>certainly the “blame the blacks” thing is absurd, i agree. there are sooo many groups we can blame, if we want to get into that game. how about senior citizens? for me, the biggest loss were the bay area people who did not bother to vote. there were enough non-voters from the bay area that conceivably the amendment could have failed if they had gotten off their lazy asses. as the saying goes, for evil to prevail, all it takes is for good people to do nothing.
which is why I love this article. Though the obvious problem of voting on minority rights remains, what this article points out is that the No on 8 campaign started with a double-digit lead over the Yes campaign, but actually opted to run a really bad campaign. While the No campaign wasn’t organizing, wasn’t fundraising, and was shutting grassroots groups out of the campaign the Yes campaign was doing the exact opposite.
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p>I think that campaigns matter… otherwise why would we have them? So though I basically agree with everything you’re saying Laurel, including the people who elected to stay home, we as a progressive community need to point squarely at our failures that needn’t have been and learn something.
For my part, I was shocked that no one had organized a canvassing campaign. But as the article itself stated, no one anticipated the gargantuan roll the LDS would play. Everyone knew they would be involved, but not at the level they were. The enemy was underestimated. Not even the Catholic Churches in MA were as forthcoming with their time and money as were the Mormons of CA and surrounds. Again for me, it all comes back to the haters having most of the churches to organize through, and a majority of Americans willing to believe their lies because churches are seen as an honest authority. Most Americans are gay haters, that’s all there is to it. In that light, I am almost tempted to think MA was a fluke and as I said, losing by only 2% in CA is a victory of sorts.
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p>I agree that the ad campaign could have been done differently, perhaps to better effect. But do remember that the NO on Prop 8 ad campaign was working well until the LDS spat out its lie-encrusted ads. They effectively scared parents about their children being co-opted into homosexuality at school. And again, IMO the ads worked because people are predisposed to not trust gays but to completely trust churches. I was on the phone banks (make 4,000 calls) and can’t tell you how many people who have no problem with gays in the abstract refused to listen to the truth about schools. They simply refused. They were scared. All the ads in the world will not make someone vote against what they perceive to be the safest thing for their child. The LDS ads were brilliant and, IMO, unbeatable.
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p>I just came across this timeline of LDS involvement by Chino Blanco. This is the level of opposition we must prepare for next time. Will we be able to convince lazy liberals that this kind of opposition can be surmounted? (go to original source for links to references)
the vote on Question 8 defeated overwhelmingly by blacks. Liberals have to support the vote favoring gays but can’t possibly look into the mirror every morning if they “Oh God” criticize blacks… but… but… how can we somehow blame maybe white conservatives for this, think, think… OK, I guess we’ll just blame everyone and nobody will get mad, good.
Often you tell us about how good, useful, and wonderful it is to have opposing viewpoints represented in a discussion.
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p>Fine.
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p>Your torrent of comments today and yesterday, which alternate between goading and trotting out your favorite hobby horses, are an example as to why this is not interesting.
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p>The post-mortem on Proposition 8 is an interesting question. Goading and whining are boring. Boring, more boring, and more boring still.
you two should do more of it 🙂
Yeah, it’s beautiful. Liberals, being undead, life-hating moon-bats, can never feel comfortable, they’d go up in flames like vampires out the sun if they ever felt too comfortable. They require anguished awareness of injustice and pain to make it from one depraved howling night to the next. But that pathetic existence can still slip into dangerous comfort, if it goes too long with without some general goading. Content is preferred, but even if it’s content-free goading, the frustration makes up for the lack of specific insult. So KBusch is able to maintain enough anguish to be not comfortable, or at least not as comfortable as other people. And her readership is rewarded.
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p>It’s the opposite with conservatives like JohnD: they can never allow themselves to feel anguished, they require comfort to feel at ease, but require goading to be comfortable, because their own comfort isn’t enough, they don’t like other people being more comfortable than they are either.
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p>It’s maybe symbiotic, but that implies it’s good for both of them, which I’m not sure it is.
I like to dialogue with people, it validates my existence and challenges my ideology. Sometimes a simple honest question will stimulate it while other times it takes a little snarky remark to “encourage” the back-and-forth conversation. If you want to call my attempts at this goading, then you are factually correct but understand for the most part the purpose is to get people to talk (I’ll admit that sometimes I’m just pissed off and let some steam out too). In fact, I think goading will sometimes cause people to have a more honest discussion with no holds barred remarks (right from the heart… for those of us who have them) instead of the polite diplomacy where word choosing masks how people really feel.
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p>So IMO, the goad is good for the goose and maybe good for gander. Of course, if the point of the goad is to simply lob hand grenades and run away then it is guilty, as KBusch declares, of BORING.
Mind you, they and Mr Lynne had a good 12-rounder recently, as well. They were kind enough to do it in the comment thread of an older post, so it wasn’t as noticeable.
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p>But hey, it doesn’t always have to be this way — I had a few spats with Ryan, but now we get along fine.
that article summed most of them up quite nicely.
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p>But prop 8 has become a rally cry, a kick in the butt, and I think our community has responded and will continue to respond admirably. We will reverse Prop 8, one way or the other, and in the meantime the issue has been raised in a way that it was never before.