Republicans have been trying to use same-sex marriage as a wedge issue to secure more votes from Latino Americans — a group that the GOP has actively marginalized because of the GOP’s general racism and anti-immigrant policies — assuming that Latinos tend to be more religious and socially conservative than many other voting blocs. Well, whoops: It turns out that more than half of Latino voters support marriage equality. Sorry Republicans, but you’re on the losing end of the electorate (and history) on this one.
Author: has written 5096 posts for this blog.
Return to: Homepage | Blog Index
11 Responses
Comments are closed.
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/10/18/1040901/breaking-federal-appeals-court-strikes-down-doma-in-opinion-by-republican-appointed-judge/
Done within 2 years?
Hopefully this debate about secular human rights will end soon. This is not a religious issue. It’s a separation of church/state issue – some people want the USA to adopt a particular religious view of marriage. You don’t even have to believe LGBT people are not horrible sinners to support equality at the level of secular government institutions. The USA grants equality to members of religions that engage in such sinful practices as idol worship and sacrificing animals without batting an eye. And there are way more prohibitions in the Bible on worshipping false gods than there are on being LGBT, so even the most hard core Bible thumper should not care what the government chooses to regard as married/not married.
It’s kind of amazing how quickly this country has come around with regards to gay marriage.
This is great news, but I never trust polls. I feel like they tell people what they want to hear. I never have a good feeling when these issues are put up to a vote, and usually bigotry wins out.
That’s true. In the privacy of the voting booth, people are notoriously more hostile to marriage equality.
That’s right. The next time the voters in any state approve marriage equality in any kind of referendum will be the first time. What are we? 0 for 30, or some ridiculous number like that?
Yes, it’s at least 30, and I don’t know anyone willing to bet anything substantial on even one win in four next month, despite some tolerable-looking poll numbers.
We did get what was effectively as good as a victory here in Connecticut. If I recall correctly, every certain number of years we have a ballot question about amending the state constitution by popular vote. We can’t just submit amendments as they can in other states. That question came up the year or the year after marriage passed. While it was not a straight-up vote against or favouring marriage equality, it was made quite clear to anyone who was paying attention just what amendment would be first in line. I forget whether the question didn’t get a majority of votes cast or if it needed either a supermajority or a certain percentage of registered voters and fell short, but the end result was that NOM couldn’t submit an amendment. Not an outright victory in its own name, but good enough for me, though fifteen years too late.
I remember a study that suggested that the place where voting is held can have an effect. For instance, if you go to a school building to vote, you’re more likely to be for education.
And, if you’re like my town, most voting is hosted in churches, so…
This gives me a lot of cautious hope. There are religious conservative Latinos who will sometimes be in opposition to same-sex marriage, or hold other conservative positions… Four years ago, one of the Spanish-speaking Evangelical churches in town had a sign supporting President Obama (I’m thinking the signs were a big IRS no no, I’m surprised they got away with it) and supporting Prop H8… But people are changing. My longtime high school BFF is serious about her Catholicism, and is unfortunately anti-choice, but after having her brother come out to her as gay and my coming out to her as bisexual, she is pro-GLBT rights. And then I see some of it with my family. I’m not really out to my extended family yet, but one of my cousins is, and it was an interesting experience to see him and his partner at my cousin’s grandmother’s funeral. His partner was a real support to him, and his partner also rolled up his sleeves and was the only man who helped my aunts and cousins with the massive amount of cooking involved after the wake and after the funeral… Some more distant relatives seemed uncomfortable that my cousin is gay and that his partner is a non-Latino white guy, but most of the family seemed very accepting and comfortable, and I think that’s a good sign…
I have always been curious about how support is always on the rise for same-sex marriage, yet every time it is put to a vote and the people are allowed to cast a vote, same-sex marriage is defeated my an average margin of 2:1.
How is this reconciled?
[...] [More: feministe] [...]