Capitol Hill Blue Forums We shall overcome

I don't know what your point is . . .

According to the exit polls, Protestants voted 65% YES on Prop 8, and Catholics voted 64% YES on Prop 8.

Exit poll data showed seven in 10 black voters and more than half of Latino voters backed the ballot initiative, while whites and Asians were split.

A Times database analysis of Proposition 8 voting in Los Angeles County shows some clear geographic divides over the issue of banning gay marriage. The database team produced a variety of interactive maps designed to help understand Proposition 8 balloting in L.A. and across California. Here are some highlights:

WESTSIDE: Voters rejected Proposition 8 on the Westside by a large margin. About 66% of voters in Beverly Hills voted "no," as did 78% of Santa Monica voters. In Malibu, 69% voted no. Opposition was also heavy in the hillside corridor west of downtown from Echo Park and Silver Lake to Hollywood and West Hollywood, and also in the Mid-Wilshire, Fairfax and Beverly Center areas. That strong opposition to the measure jumped over the Hollywood Hills to the affluent "south of Ventura Boulevard" crowd and even farther north.

SOLID SOUTH and EAST: Some of the strongest support for Proposition 8 was south of downtown L.A., among black and Latino voters. In Compton, 65% of voters said "yes," as did 60% in Huntington Park, 61% in Inglewood and 63% in Lynwood. Similar levels of support were evident in predominantly Latino cities to the east, including Whittier, El Monte, Baldwin Park and Pomona.

ASIAN VOTE: Several cities with large Asian American populations -- Monterey Park, Alhambra, Temple City, San Gabriel, San Marino and Cerritos -- backed the measure. (Some of these cities also have sizable Latino populations.)

ALONG THE COAST: In the South Bay, the biggest opposition was along the coast. The beach cities -- Redondo, Manhattan and Hermosa -- all voted "no" by healthy margins. But on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, all four communities approved Proposition 8 (Palos Verdes Estates, however, did so by a thin margin).

FAR WEST VALLEY: The 101 Freeway corridor generally voted no: Agoura Hills, Calabasas, Hidden Hills and Westlake Village.

City with the largest "yes" percentage: INDUSTRY, 82% (but only 18 voters)

City with the largest "no" percentage: WEST HOLLYWOOD, 86%

I see no support for that statement in the linked article.

In all the post-election commentary about California's passage of Proposition 8, perhaps none was more offensive and wrong than I call "bull$hit"! How does the writer know that it's a regular occurrence? How about a few examples? And with them, examples of the "muted response"?

Straw man.

Oh, and speaking of straw men. Phil, how about those quotes from Cannick's essay supporting your claim of her "breathtaking" stereotyping?

Maybe white gays could afford to be singularly focused, raising millions of dollars to fight for the luxury of same-sex marriage. But blacks were walking the streets of the projects and reaching out to small businesses, gang members, convicted felons and the spectrum of an entire community to ensure that we all were able to vote.

Likewise, holding the occasional town-hall meeting in Leimert Park -- the one part of the black community where they now feel safe thanks to gentrification -- to tell black people how to vote on something gay isn't effective outreach either.

There's nothing a white gay person can tell me when it comes to how I as a black lesbian should talk to my community about this issue. If and when I choose to, I know how to say what needs to be said. Many black gays just haven't been convinced that this movement for marriage is about anything more than the white gays who fund it (and who, we often find, are just as racist and clueless when it comes to blacks as they claim blacks are homophobic).

DELTA TWP. - A radical gay rights group is claiming responsibility for a protest Sunday at Mount Hope Church in Delta Township.

Protesters who entered the Creyts Road church along with worshippers surprised the congregation when they stood up during the service, threw fliers at churchgoers and shouted slogans such as "It's OK to be gay," and "Jesus was a homo," according to David Williams, communications director at the church. His father, Dave Williams, is the church's longtime pastor. He was not preaching at the church Sunday.

To the extent that any of this matters to me enough to say anything, it will be to point out to my brothers and sisters that historically, neither white gays or white conservatives have ever been known to have the best interest of Blacks at heart.

What did change for me was my willingness to actively engage myself in a struggle that's been from the beginning, and continues to be, elitist. Plainly put, the gay marriage struggle is the perfect example of white gay America’s “superiority complex” in action. And before you scream that I’m a racist, I’d encourage you to step outside of your whiteness for a moment and take a look at the marriage movement through someone else’s eyes.

Enter the Black same-gender-loving community. Our worth in the gay civil rights movement, whether you choose to believe it or not, amounts to our willingness to be used in photo ops and carry their message of marriage to Blacks, putting aside all other issues. That’s it.

I mean really, at the end of the day how does the fact that two people want to get married affect your life? Is it taking food off your table and out of your mouth? The roof over your head? Are gays getting married the reason why Black men are being incarcerated at a rate higher than any other race? Is it the reason why more Black kids are dropping out of school and picking up guns? Is it the reason why you are unemployed and without healthcare? No, I didn’t think so.

Once again, we allowed others to come into our community and dictate to us what our agenda should be. We allowed white conservatives to purchase our pulpits and then dutifully volunteered to spread their message of divide and conquer. But what’s really baffling and equally troubling to me is that Black people collaborated with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS) who for nearly 150 years through the Mormon Church taught that all Blacks were cursed, uncouth, uncomely, wild, and ‘seemingly deprived of nearly all the blessings of the intelligence that is generally bestowed upon mankind’…among other things.

Like with the Minutemen and the issue of immigration, Black people once again made alliances with people who on any other issue we are usually standing opposite…polar opposite. Simply put—we were used.

At the end of the day, Prop 8's passage was more a generational matter than a racial one. If nobody over the age of 65 had voted, Prop 8 would have failed by a point or two. It appears that the generational splits may be larger within minority communities than among whites, although the data on this is sketchy.

The good news for supporters of marriage equity is that -- and there's no polite way to put this -- the older voters aren't going to be around for all that much longer, and they'll gradually be cycled out and replaced by younger voters who grew up in a more tolerant era. Everyone knew going in that Prop 8 was going to be a photo finish -- California might be just progressive enough and 2008 might be just soon enough for the voters to affirm marriage equity. Or, it might fall just short, which is what happened. But two or four or six or eight years from now, it will get across the finish line.