Monthly Archives: November 2008

Bigotry or conscience: the electoral triumph of the pro-choice opponents of gay marriage

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Non-election posting will resume on Monday.

A couple of great post-election musings by Lynn Gazis-Sax here and here.

In a comment below yesterday’s post, Hector (a pro-life Catholic Obama voter with a strong social conscience) remarked, in regards to the various state results:

It’s truly sad that many social conservatives in America appear to care more about whether something is called ‘civil union’ or ‘civil marriage’ than about the protection of innocent human life.

In the last two or three election cycles, a pattern has developed that was confirmed again on Tuesday. Every single measure designed to limit the rights of gays and lesbians (in Arizona, Arkansas, Florida and California) passed. Every single measure designed to further restrict abortion failed (in California, South Dakota, and Colorado). Outside of California, these votes weren’t particularly close. Certainly in the Golden State, hundreds of thousands of voters chose to “split the ticket” on Propositions 4 and 8 — voting to ban gay marriage while voting to protect the right of teenage girls to seek abortion without parental consent.

To both the true believers on left and right, these are perplexing results. Who are these hundreds of thousands of folks who support abortion rights for minors but oppose gay marriage for consenting adults? The statistics make it clear that a great many people voted “No” on 4 (to require parental notification) and “Yes” on 8 (to eliminate same-sex marriage.) I’m an ENFP; I know a great many people, but all the Californians I know voted one of three ways: “No” on both 4 and 8, “Yes” on both 4 and 8, or “Yes” on 4 and “No” on 8. I haven’t met a single soul who voted “No” on 4 and “Yes” on 8. Clearly, they exist. Clearly, they determined the outcome of the election. Open call, readers: if you know someone who did vote that way, ask them to come and comment here (anonymously, if they prefer.) I’m fascinated to know what the moral calculus was for that particular combination.

In any event, this decade social conservatives are losing on the so-called “life issues” almost every time they hit the ballot. A “death with dignity” proposition passed this year in Washington: several states have passed bills to legalize embryonic stem-cell research, most famously Missouri in 2006. The pro-life movement continues to claim that Americans, particularly young Americans, are re-thinking abortion — but recent election results suggest otherwise. Americans are as willing as they ever have been to protect choice.

But social conservatives are enjoying great success in limiting marriage to a man and a woman. That’s true in “red” states like Arizona, “purple” swing states like Florida, and solidly blue states like my own California. I expected Proposition 4 to fail, but I honestly didn’t foresee Proposition 8 passing by a 500,000 vote margin. I would never have imagined that Los Angeles County would reject gay marriage, and am as bitterly disappointed as a heterosexual cisgendered person could be. The polls show that black and Latino voters, galvanized by Barack Obama, voted heavily against gay marriage. Many cited religious convictions for rejecting same-sex marriage. However, many of those same voters cast ballots to protect abortion rights for minor girls. Does anyone know of a parish in which the pastor preached against gay marriage — and in favor of abortion rights? Me neither. Continue reading →

Friday Random Ten: and so begins the task edition

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One of these songs is very much not like the others. #8 is one of those nuggets of hard rock candy that got into my head in high school, and never let go. And #6 is by one of my favorite artists working today.

1. “You’ll Never Leave Harlan Alive”, Patty Loveless
2. “After the Gold Rush”, Trio (Harris, Parton, Ronstadt)
3. “Fancy Funeral”, Lucinda Williams
4. “Nightswimming”, REM
5. “One Voice”, Wailin’ Jennys
6. “Death Came and Got Me”, Rosie Thomas
7. “The Shape You’re In”, Catherine Feeny
8. “Rock and Roll Party in the Street”, Axe
9. “Something Less than Something”, Caitlin Cary
10. “Visions”, Jennifer Knapp

Exit polls, the marriage gap, and the importance of strong public institutions

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It has become almost axiomatic in American politics that one of the biggest divides among voters is that between the married and the unmarried, particularly women. The exit poll data from Tuesday’s election makes clear that if anything, this divide is growing.

Married People (both sexes):

McCain: 52%
Obama: 47%

Single People (both sexes):

Obama: 65%
McCain: 33%

That’s a pretty stunning gulf; McCain wins all marrieds by 5; Obama wins the single by a staggering 32 points. But wait, it gets better.

Married women without children (of any age):

McCain: 53%
Obama: 44%

Unmarried women without children:

Obama: 69%
McCain: 31%

That’s much broader than for men.

Unmarried men, no kids:

Obama: 56%
McCain: 41%

Married men, no kids:

McCain: 52%
Obama: 48%

What to make of this? Heterosexual marriage (it’s hard to tell from the exit polls whether legally married same-sex couples in Massachusetts or California were included) tends to make its participants more conservative. Men are already more conservative in their politics than women, so the “conservatizing effect” is comparatively greater upon women. (Among all men, Obama beat McCain by 1 point, 49-48; among all women, Obama cruised to victory, 56-43. This year’s gender gap was 12 points.) No wonder conservatives are so eager to “protect” and “defend” traditional marriage — it’s a reliable vote-getter. Support among the single, particularly among single-women, is absolutely wretched for the GOP. Continue reading →

One more Prop 8 post-mortem

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In my Gay and Lesbian American History class, we spent an hour yesterday sorting through the mixed emotions in the aftermath of the election. I chose not to lecture, and turned the first half of the class into an open forum for venting and discussion about the passage of Proposition 8 and the new ban on same-sex marriage here in California. In the second half of the course, I offered a series of reasons for why the results came the way they did, based on analyses of the two campaigns and upon the exit polling data.

I had wondered if some in the class — the majority of whom identify as non-heterosexual or non-cis-gendered — would be very sad. There was sadness, to be sure, but also anger and enthusiasm. One young woman, just 18 and in the process of coming out to her family as a lesbian, said “More than ever, today like I feel like I’m part of a movement that really has to fight.” Many students said that they had simply assumed that Prop 8 would be defeated; indeed, several admitted that they had been more anxious about Barack Obama than about same-sex marriage. One said “This is California; we always do the right thing here. I was worried the rest of the nation was racist and wouldn’t vote for a black man. And it turns out Obama wins easily and Californians are bigots!” There was some nodding when that remark was made.

I know a few of my students, several of whom are budding or even seasoned activists in the gay community, had done some phone-banking against Prop 8. But I know that in general, they spent far more time working for the Democratic Party and Barack Obama. Only one student had given money to the “No on 8″ fight; seven reported having made small donations to he who is now our president-elect. It isn’t the fault of the Obama campaign that they ran such a marvelous grassroots operation that inspired the young — but inadvertently, they may have “sucked a lot of the air” out of the room, leaving fewer resources than usual to fight for gay and lesbian rights here in California. I know a great many young progressives who traveled this past weekend to Nevada to work at GOTV (get out the vote) for Barack Obama; at the same time, the Mormons and other large church organizations brought outsiders in to California to do precinct walking against gay marriage. Progressive energies were not all where they might have been. Continue reading →

Thursday Short Poem: Goldensohn’s “Back Roads”

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My late father had an extraordinary sense of geography. He loved maps, as I do, and his sense of direction was stunning. Dad first came to the USA in 1959, when he was 24. He was a passenger on a freighter that sailed from Southampton to Miami; at home in England, my father had had a brief romantic liason with a young American woman whose father was a dean at U of M in Coral Gables. But Dad didn’t stay long in the Sunshine State; having secured a fellowship at Berkeley, he spent five days on a Greyhound bus traveling from South Florida to the Bay Area. He saw quite a bit of the country, and decades later, remembered everything he saw and everyone he met on that remarkable trip.

Dad had “big veins” in his hands and forearms; so do I. This Barry Goldensohn poem, which appeared a few weeks ago in the New York Review of Books, is perfect.

Back Roads

After a brief violent storm toppled trees,
deep rooted ones, splayed crowns
across the roads, root balls,
the buried double of the crowns
pulled up as walls of loam in air,
and young ones blown down too,
I drove out to meet my wife and found
most roads blocked, but I knew
the country threeway and fourway roads
like the veins on the back of my hands,
rivers on a map, and I found my way
by zigzag and backtrack till I arrived.

As a child I stared at my father’s hands
in fascination at his bulging veins.
With trivial variations this design
is the common one—rivers that join
at the wrist and tangle up the forearm.
That I can tell my own from anyone’s
is the clinging illusion of uniqueness
given the superior child, the first son,
the golden son. I still navigate by this.

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Exuberant and saddened, all at once: a morning-after report

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In this world where everyone has a blog, what can I add this morning to the avalanche of post-election chatter?

I can start by saying that I am filled with joy and sadness at once. Joy, of course, in Barack Obama’s triumph. Joy that my fellow Californians have, by a resounding margin, spoken up for better conditions for farm animals. Joy that there will be more progressive voices in Congress and the state legislature than there have been in some time. And sadness, real sadness, that Proposition 8, banning gay marriage, appears almost certain to have passed here in California.

As far as the presidential election is concerned, like so many liberals, my fear that we would somehow find a way to lose a “sure thing” overwhelmed me in recent weeks; I had a hard time believing the polls (which turned out to be accurate.) With two states remaining to be called (Missouri and North Carolina), Barack Obama’s margin in both the popular and electoral college vote exceeded my hopes. To watch Virginia, a state for which I have great affection and to which I have strong family ties, fall into the Democratic column was particularly satisfying. Though the margins in the House and Senate were not quite as sweeping as I had hoped, they are sufficient to come close to giving progressives the best mandate we have had since at least 1964, and perhaps since 1932. There is much reason for optimism.

I puddled up three times yesterday. The first time was standing in line to vote. I showed up at my polling place at 6:45AM, fifteen minutes before it was scheduled to open. In 2004, I had walked in without a wait — yesterday, there were at least 100 people ahead of me, standing in a light rain. We shared umbrellas and anticipation, and moved slowly towards the doors. The moment that grabbed me was when one of the first people who had been in line emerged, having cast his vote: a black man in his seventies, very well-dressed, a huge smile on his face: “Good morning, everyone!” he said to those of us still standing on line. “It’s going to be a great day.” His joy was palpable, his certainty that he was witnessing history absolute — and I got a lump in my throat. The second time I teared up was listening to Obama’s acceptance speech; his eloquence, his poise, his narrative and his promise overwhelmed me. The thought that my future children — who will carry African blood in their veins — will take it for granted that anyone can be president made my heart soar and the water rush to my eyes. Continue reading →

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The long-awaited morning

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It’s 4:00AM, and I’m cruising on three hours sleep. I wanted to sleep a bit later, but the pre-election anxiety kicked in. One last time, my endorsements are here.

I’ll go for a short run in the drizzle in about an hour, and be cleaned up and ready to vote by the time the polls open at 7:00AM. I’ll be home from school by mid-afternoon, and settle in for what will be eight or nine hours straight (or more) of uninterrupted election coverage. At several points, I’ll make some phone calls to friends and family, especially to my mother. Since 1976, when I was nine, my mother and I have rejoiced and lamented together during and after each election. In 1976, I was allowed to stay up late and listen to the radio (we didn’t have a television then) while the results came in. I colored in each state with crayons as the results were announced; as most older folks know, back in those days we used “red” for the Democrats and “blue” for the Republicans. (As they do in Britain still.) Tonight, I’ll have the TVs going with the laptop fired up. And the maps will get colored in by tapping a mouse pad.

Whatever happens, my work will go on tomorrow, as will the work of the world at large. But no blogging until after this excitement is over.

Since my first election, when I loyally supported Carter in 1976, I cannot recall caring as passionately about the outcome of a presidential election as I do about this one. And I am very nervous, like millions of others out there, so trying to write about anything else is pointless.

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A pro-life Mormon for Obama: a link to Russell Arben Fox

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I’ve long been a fan of Russell Arben Fox, an immensely thoughtful Mormon philosopher and “crunchy conservative”. Though Russell is strongly pro-life, he is voting for Barack Obama tomorrow, and in this lengthy post, works through his reasons why. It’s worth a read for its breadth, its depth, and its persuasiveness. Money quote:

To walk away from standing up for many good things in the name of speaking out against one great bad thing doesn’t necessarily lead to McCain…

I do have hopes for what a President Obama will do–a lot of hopes, in fact. And my fears regarding what his presidency will mean for the future of abortion in America do not outweigh those hopes.

Send his post to your Catholic friends and neighbors who would vote for Obama, save for his position on abortion. As usual, Russell (with whom I frequently disagree, but even more frequently admire) hits it out of the park.

Election eve, with prayerful and (almost) fearless predictions

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My wife and I spent the weekend down in Mexico City. Though we’ve spent a bit of time in South America (many visits to her mother’s native Colombia, as well as Chile and Argentina), we hadn’t gone to Mexico yet together. And though I did some missions work in a small village in southern Sinaloa for a few consecutive summers, I had never been to what is by far the largest city in North America. According to my mother (in a rare moment of “TMI”), I was conceived in a Mexico City hotel room sometime in August, 1966. So for those who hold that life begins at conception, Hugo Schwyzer embarked upon this journey of life south of the border.

In any event, we had a wonderful time. We stayed in a small, spare, painfully hip boutique hotel in the Polanco district, but spent as much time as possible touring about. We both adored Coyoacan and the Kahlo/Rivera museums, as well as wandering through neighborhoods like San Angel and the stunning Chapultepec park. And of course, we were in town for Dia de los Muertos. My Spanish is getting better, but I still rely too heavily on my wife to do the translating. I’ve got the “Rosetta Stone” Spanish DVDs sitting at home, waiting for an as-of-yet non-existent free hour.

Folks, there will be only election-related posts through Wednesday. “Regular” blogging to resume by the end of the week. My endorsements are here.

Four years ago, I posted this the day before George W. Bush was re-elected: God, Voting, and Election Eve. I re-read it this morning, and winced when I read these lines:

I’m also increasingly optimistic about the chances of a Kerry victory. My own electoral college prediction (why not, it’s free) is that Kerry wins 284-254. Bush will concede on Friday of this week, I imagine. The Democrats will have a net gain of one Senate seat, or so I predict.

I was a lousy, and very disappointed, prognosticator. And it is once again election eve, and one very clear instinct within me says “For heaven’s sakes, Hugo, don’t make any more predictions. You jinxed it last time.” As the New York Times reported a couple of days ago, liberals across the country are tying themselves into knots of anxiety; from Berkeley to Braintree, Ann Arbor to Austin, we lefties are united as much in our longing for an Obama victory as we are in our not entirely unreasonable fear that “something” will happen (as it did in Florida in 2000, or Ohio in 2004), to dash all of our hopes.

I’ve worked hard in my life to overcome my supersititiousness and magical thinking. What socks I wear, what inanimate objects I clutch, what phrases I mindlessly recite will have no bearing on the outcome of sporting events or elections. What matters is how I vote, and the degree to which I am able to provide time, money, or inspiration to the campaigns in which I believe. And predicting doom, while it may serve to provide some grim satisfaction when and if the nightmare comes true, is no way to get through life.

So here’s my sensibly optimistic prediction for tomorrow’s election. Continue reading →