Dear Bitter Obama Haters

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP, maybe you should give the same advice to the democrats out in California who are protesting Prop 8 around the clock. It was voted on, it passed, get over it. Ironically, it was the African-Americans and Hispanics who came out to vote for Obama who also pushed through Prop 8. Funny, how that democracy thing works, huh?

If I remember correctly, our last president came to power through a ruling from the Supreme Court of the United States. It IS funny how that democracy thing works!

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

There is no comparison between the election of a president and a ballot initiative that actually takes away rights from US citizens. The ballot initiative may well be illegal. Far from getting over it, anyone concerned with basic civil rights has a duty to protest the vote.

Whoa - careful Jeff. Whether marriage is a 'RIGHT' owed to same sex partners is wide open for debate. I am confident that you cannot find this in our Constitution, nor has it been litigated and settled by the Supreme Court. You may BELIEVE it is a right, but that doesn't make it so.

The dear Wiki at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Defense_of_Marriage_Act states:

The Defense of Marriage Act, or DOMA, is the short title of a federal law of the United States passed on September 21, 1996 as Public Law No. 104-199, 110 Stat. 2419. Its provisions are codified at 1 U.S.C. § 7 and 28 U.S.C. § 1738C. The law has two effects:

1. No state (or other political subdivision within the United States) need treat a relationship between persons of the same sex as a marriage, even if the relationship is considered a marriage in another state.
2. The Federal Government may not treat same-sex relationships as marriages for any purpose, even if concluded or recognized by one of the states.

The bill was passed by Congress by a vote of 85-14 in the Senate[1] and a vote of 342-67 in the House of Representatives[2], and was signed into law by President Bill Clinton on September 21, 1996.

and this remains in force today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess those throwing stones haven't seen all the "Impeach Him" signs in my neighborhood, or the anti-Bush bumper stickers that are ubiquitous around here. I too am a Democrat and a proud Obama supporter. But the notion of bipartisan support goes both ways, and I suspect plenty of those who've flamed Republicans on here participated in plenty of bitter bitching over Bush's two wins. Maybe if they peel the "W is not my president" stickers off their cars Republicans will find it a little easier to move on.

Regarding the impeachment stuff: I think this is a little different. When Bush won the first election, I was disappointed and worried, but I was willing to give him a chance. I remember my Republican friends saying things like, "well he may not be the brightest, but he will surround himself with good advisors". and I wanted to believe them.

I don't think the impeachment stuff (which I have not participated in) started, or at least didn't get hot and heavy, until the Presidency had experienced some, shall we say, significant controversies.

If Obama really screws up, I am prepared for the "don't blame me I voted for McCain" bumper stickers I am sure to see.

However, we should all remember that Obama has inherited a DISASTER from those genius advisors of GWB. It would take the second coming (which O is not) to get this all fixed. Even the biggest fan must reasonably have low expectations.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP, maybe you should give the same advice to the democrats out in California who are protesting Prop 8 around the clock. It was voted on, it passed, get over it. Ironically, it was the African-Americans and Hispanics who came out to vote for Obama who also pushed through Prop 8. Funny, how that democracy thing works, huh?

There is no comparison between the election of a president and a ballot initiative that actually takes away rights from US citizens. The ballot initiative may well be illegal. Far from getting over it, anyone concerned with basic civil rights has a duty to protest the vote.

Moreover, your suggestion that the passage of the initiative was owed to African-Americans and Hispanics is a wide-spread, yet false myth. The best debunking is here:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/prop-8-myths.html

Note that the author of this article had one of the most accurate predictions concerning the outcome of the presidential election, having a more accurate prediction than most major pollsters. He knows what he is talking about:

"it would be premature to say that new Latino and black voters were responsible for Prop 8's passage. Latinos aged 18-29 (not strictly the same as 'new' voters, but the closest available proxy) voted against Prop 8 by a 59-41 margin. These figures are not available for young black voters, but it would surprise me if their votes weren't fairly close to the 50-50 mark."

"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."

In sum, had it not been for the black and Latino voters coming out to vote for Obama, the proposition would have been defeated by a wider margin.

As a (part-time) Californian who has studied social conservatism as it relates to race/ethnicity, I'm not sure I completely agree. I understand the urge to debunk this belief, but the reasoning is speculative. Many studies show that social conservatism is associated with religiosity and that it is more prevalent among blacks, Asians and Latinos. Many studies also show greater religiosity among blacks, Asians, and Latinos than among whites, regardless of age. Controlling for religiosity there might be no racial effect, but there may be a class effect. Anecdotally these findings replicate what I have observed among my grad students in California, who are heavily Latino and Asian. My students heavily favored Prop 8, despite their status as grad students in human services fields -- and despite my efforts to educate them about the social oppression of GLBTs. (Sigh.) Some white students favored Prop 8 as well, but they were mostly LDS or members of other conservative churches. In my HIV/AIDS prevention work I have also found black and Latino churches to be strongly opposed to needle exchange, condom distribution, and even the discussion of HIV/AIDS through their social ministries. While this is changing, it is very frustrating. Black and Latino GLBT leaders in California have conceded their failure to sufficiently educate their populations about Prop 8 and are beginning a new outreach campaign in the hope of changing the outcome. However, while they do think blacks and Latinos and Asians voted heavily for Prop 8, the real catalyst for its passage was huge infusions of cash from the LDS church, which is very powerful in the west. That's a tougher nut for the GLBT community to crack.

[Anonymous]

On the plus side concerning Prop 8, Governor Schwarzenegger says
"I think that we will again maybe undo that, if the court is willing to do that, and then move forward from there and again lead in that area."

And Nate Silver, the statistician Jeff quoted, says
"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."

[jsteele]

Anonymous wrote:
Whoa - careful Jeff. Whether marriage is a 'RIGHT' owed to same sex partners is wide open for debate. I am confident that you cannot find this in our Constitution, nor has it been litigated and settled by the Supreme Court. You may BELIEVE it is a right, but that doesn't make it so.

The right of same-sex marriage may not appear in the US Constitution, but according to the California Supreme Court, it does exist in the California State Constitution. That is why there are thousands of same-sex marriages in California. Prop 8 has taken away that right and destroyed those families.

DOMA is probably not long for this world. As more and more states and countries begin recognizing same-sex marriages, Federal laws will have to comply with reality.

Anonymous wrote:
As a (part-time) Californian who has studied social conservatism as it relates to race/ethnicity, I'm not sure I completely agree. I understand the urge to debunk this belief, but the reasoning is speculative.

Actually, Nate Silver's analysis is quantitative, based on exit polling. While I completely agree that segments of the hispanic and black communities are less tolerant of same-sex relationships than segments of the white community, Nate's statistics don't show that as translating into the passage of Prop. 8. Rather, he is quite clear, that the differentiating factor was age. Its quite unfair to scapegoat the minority communities for the proposition's passage. If anything, people should be questioning the LDS's tax exemptions.

[Anonymous]

I saw Judge Judy on Larry King this week, and she said that Prop 8 can't undo the marriages that took place during the window when same-sex marriage was legal. It can only prevent further marriages for the time being.

For whatever the source is worth.

[Anonymous]

jsteele wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
As a (part-time) Californian who has studied social conservatism as it relates to race/ethnicity, I'm not sure I completely agree. I understand the urge to debunk this belief, but the reasoning is speculative.

Actually, Nate Silver's analysis is quantitative, based on exit polling. While I completely agree that segments of the hispanic and black communities are less tolerant of same-sex relationships than segments of the white community, Nate's statistics don't show that as translating into the passage of Prop. 8. Rather, he is quite clear, that the differentiating factor was age. Its quite unfair to scapegoat the minority communities for the proposition's passage. If anything, people should be questioning the LDS's tax exemptions.

Well, I may be wrong, of course. Do you have a link to the actual analysis, or to anything other than the CNN exit poll data he links to? Those data are problematic because they offer percentages only, and there are no crosstabs of vote x race x age for blacks. I didn't say Silver's analysis isn't quantitative; I said his reasoning is speculative.

I think I was unclear in my previous post. I am certainly not saying blacks and Latinos caused Prop 8 to pass. I am saying that they supported Prop 8 at higher rates than whites. That assertion is clearly borne out by the data. I don't think it's scapegoating to point out that black voters of all ages supported Prop 8 by a 70-30 margin. The margin was smaller among Latinos of all ages: 53 to 47. As percentages, it is clear that among Latinos, at least, only those under 30 opposed Prop 8 at a rate greater than 50%. For blacks, we don't have those crosstabs.

Here's a major problem with Silver's reasoning. He writes, "Latinos aged 18-29 . . . voted against Prop 8 by a 59-41 margin. These figures are not available for young black voters, but it would surprise me if their votes weren't fairly close to the 50-50 mark." The bolded quote is a purely speculative assumption that then becomes a piece of data in his analysis. Okay, grant him that assumption. But if he assumes their young voter percentage was similar to that of young Latinos, he'd probably have to grant that the other two age-group percentages for blacks are similar to those of Latinos. In other words, 60% and 57% for Prop 8. And that simply doesn't work, given that exit polls show 70% of all blacks supported Prop 8. So among the three age groups, you have 50%, 60% and 57% of blacks supporting Prop 8? How do you reconcile that with the overall percentage of 70%? You can't. There aren't enough over-65 blacks to create that overall percentage, since blacks over 65 made up 1% or less of those voting. His assumptions are flawed. And you can't make a definitive statement that age was the defining criterion based on flawed assumptions and exit poll percentages.

Nate Silver is very strong quantitatively -- stronger than I am for sure -- but I can't buy this analysis. Show me actual numbers and the missing crosstabs and I'll believe it. But again, I am not saying blacks and Latinos put Prop 8 over the line. Just that they supported it at higher rates than whites.

Here's a question: Do we even know if the percentage of the California electorate that was black and Latino in this election differed significantly from the 2004 percentage of blacks and Latinos? I don't know that it did. That would make the whole question moot anyway, wouldn't it?

As for the LDS church's tax-exempt status, of course I agree with you. But the truth is that my highly liberal church is just as guilty of organized political activity, exhortations from the pulpit, and even political fundraising (though on a smaller scale). This cuts both ways. My view is that all churches, if they wish to remain tax-exempt, should stay out of the business of politics. But my church was raising money to fight the parental consent ballot question in California, as well as Prop 8. So we are equally guilty of abusing our tax-exempt status. We just don't have as much money as the LDS church.