When it comes to Prop 8, they won't be able to divide the state by red & blue. Many, many voters who chose Obama over McCain also voted YES on Prop 8.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/...8/11/05/MNH413UTUS.DTL
"Californians voted their religion, not their political party, when they pushed Proposition 8 to victory and banned same-sex marriage in the state, campaign officials and political experts said Wednesday.
With 100 percent of the state's precincts reporting, Prop. 8 leads by more than half a million votes, 52.5 percent to 47.5 percent. Experts don't expect an estimated 3 million uncounted mail and provisional ballots to alter the outcome.
"The result shows that this wasn't a partisan issue for people," said Frank Schubert, who ran the Prop. 8 campaign. "People have a strong attachment to traditional marriage, and that's the way they voted."
While exit polls showed that 59 percent of Catholics backed Democratic President-elect Barack Obama, they turned around and voted for Prop. 8 by 64 percent to 36 percent.
The exit polls showed that the one-third of Tuesday's voters who attended church weekly supported the measure by an overwhelming 84 percent to 16 percent, compared with the 83 percent opposition from the one-fifth of voters who said they never attend religious observances.
"What the exit polls say is that religion trumps party affiliation when it comes to social issues," said Mark DiCamillo, director of the Field Poll. The exit poll was done by Edison Media Research.
It also trumped racial identification. While Obama publicly backed the "No on Prop. 8" effort, African American voters had no trouble voting overwhelmingly for the man who will be the nation's first black president and then voting 70 percent in favor of Prop. 8, exit polls showed.
It was a grim evening Tuesday in San Francisco for supporters of same-sex marriage, who saw Prop. 8 move into the lead minutes after the polls closed and stay ahead all night. Except in the Bay Area and a smattering of other counties, the measure was approved in three-fourths of the state's 58 counties, including Democratic strongholds such as Los Angeles and Sacramento counties.
On Wednesday, Prop. 8 opponents tried to put the best face on an election they never really expected to lose, vowing not to concede until every ballot is counted.
"There are still a lot of uncounted ballots out there, but we realize it's a very steep climb," said a subdued Geoff Kors, executive director of Equality California and a leader in the campaign against Prop. 8. "But so much is at stake when you're talking about fundamental rights and people's families, we have to wait to see those ballots."
Secretary of State Debra Bowen will release the statewide list of uncounted ballots today. But with an estimated 3 million ballots outstanding, the "no" side would have to grab 58 percent of those remaining votes to move into a tie, a far higher percentage than they received in all but a handful of California counties.
The 52 percent support for Prop. 8 is well below the 61 percent backing of Proposition 22, the same-sex marriage ban approved by California voters in 2000 that was overturned by the state Supreme Court in May.
That change shows there's hope for voter approval of same-sex marriage in the future, Kors said.
"We have lots of work to do to combat prejudice and discrimination," he added. "The lies the other side told about who gay people are are the same lies that Anita Bryant told 30 years ago," when she helped persuade voters to overturn an anti-discrimination ordinance in Miami and in an unsuccessful effort to ban gays and lesbians from teaching in California schools.
San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom echoed the disappointment at a City Hall news conference Wednesday, saying the result "doesn't make me proud."
"For those who are celebrating their success ... don't be gleeful at the expense of human beings whose lives have been devastated by your point of view," he said.
Opponents of Prop. 8 already have filed court actions to overturn the vote, arguing that the vote isn't enough to take the right to marry from gay and lesbian couples. An attorney for Prop. 8 supporters called the legal action "frivolous and regrettable."
Prop. 8 wasn't the only victory for backers of traditional marriage Tuesday. Constitutional amendments limiting marriage to a man and a woman also passed in Florida and Arizona, running the record of foes of same-sex marriage to 30-1 in ballot contests across the nation. The lone loss was in Arizona in 2006.
"This is a great day for marriage," Ron Prentice, chairman of the Prop. 8 campaign, said Wednesday in a statement declaring victory. "The people of California stood up for traditional marriage and reclaimed this great institution."
How long the victory will last is anybody's guess, especially in a state where the Constitution can be changed by any group with money enough to qualify a ballot measure and attract support from 50 percent plus one of California's voters.
"This fight is far from over ... and it's not unlikely that we'll see a group go to the ballot in the future in an attempt to enshrine the right to same-sex marriage in the Constitution," said Kim Buchanan, a constitutional law professor at the University of Southern California. "It's not going to be an easy battle, though, because there are committed people on both sides."
This one may have been somewhat slightly influenced by partisan politics, but it was decided by the churchers.
is pathetic, and clearly a sign of a small mind and a lack of patriotism.
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