Prop 8 myths

[brak666]

So everyone going on about how high African-American turn out helped Prop 8 is apparently wrong. Nate Silver at fivethirtyeight.com says it's all old people's fault. I'm inclined to agree with him. I work at a nursing home. I know from old people. They're trouble.

Comments

[carolinecrane.livejournal.com]

But as Dan Savage pointed out on Colbert, at least they're dying!

[brak666.livejournal.com]

Silver points that out as well.

[carolinecrane.livejournal.com]

Nate is awesome, but Dan on Colbert is must-see TV. I haven't nearly choked from trying not to LOL at work in a long time.

[esprix.livejournal.com]

I hope that's true. That would give me a lot more faith in life right now.

[kenkari.livejournal.com]

It's not wrong, it's incomplete. Everyone who voted for Prop 8 helped it pass. The argument about that statement is about whether the African-American turn out was increased as the result of Obama being the nominee, and if that bump in numbers was enough to cause Prop 8 to pass. I don't think we can know the answer to that question because you could slice and dice the stats to say just about anything. What about gay apathy? What about the people who voted yes thinking that it meant yes to gay marriage? What about the people who voted for candidates and bypassed the props all together? I don't think the polling data is granular and accurate enough to come to a reliable conclusion on that point.

What we can know is that 1) more outreach is necessary to many communities and 2) older people voted for this thing, but probably not all of them. Just like the Mormons, Catholics, African-Americans... and probably some gay people voted for it, too!

[brak666.livejournal.com]

Well, I was going for the laugh there. I know it's not completely wrong. And like you said there's no way to know if any one of the many factors involved was the deciding one. It's just really bothering me that instead of focusing on what we can do to get people over to our side (which the no on 8 campaign made very little effort to do) people are trying to place blame. It's pointless and unproductive.