I Want an Explanation of Why Proposition 8 Passed

And a description of a rhetorical/political strategy that would have defeated the measure.

What might opponents of Proposition 8 have done differently?

And half the country feels better about themselves if they have someone "lower" to bash.

How might they have been more successful in countering those conditions?

Someone else I know favors removing the initiative process entirely.

:shrug:

for one.

Would outreach to minorities have required a different rhetorical strategy? What concrete steps would you suggest for reaching out to minorities on this issue?

Nothing. :shrug:

But you voted against it, as did most on those lists, I suspect. How can we move the others? What in the message isn't working? What is working? How do we analyze that, amplify the good, and eliminate the bad? I've seen plenty of analyses of "lack of organization," but far fewer on rhetorical strategy. What are the available means of persuasion to prevent another similar loss going forward?

and we had to face this again, I wouldn't assume that people would vote with me because it's just right and because reasonable people understand that. I'd spend much more time scoping out the opposition's strategery and then, work to counter it or to block it. They worked through conservative churches and older voters. They had a strategy.

It doesn't look like we had one. :shrug:

There was little or no targeting of voting demographics that I could see. The little media there was came too late. Maybe I'm wrong but this loss has complacency all over it. I don't want to slam the leaders but imagine, there are a lot of things they would do differently today. What about getting up a group of straight allies? Ya think? There are many, many of us. But, it never felt as though there was a place for us in the campaign. Little things like that that could both zero in on likely voters and extend the network of advocates to help with that focus.

And, what about going to districts / precincts where the voting age is younger and getting those voters to the polls because they are largely with us. I didn't see anything like that going on.

Those are two things I can think of that would have helped, anyway.

It sounds like you're saying that some demographics are just lost, though, so the strategy would be to mobilize the ones who are not lost, but apathetic. Do you think some of the lost voters could be peeled off?

Media might have helped. There was one ad with a "grandma" talking but, it was 'way too late to really sink in, imho.

though it didn't say exactly for what, other than continuing the fight...it was a bit lacking on the details of what they intended to do. I'm not close enough to the campaign to know for sure, just went to some fundraisers. I did think there was maybe too much focus on TV advertising and not enough on street-level GOTV, billboards, and other forms of 'static' ads, but that's just a personal impression. I don't know what the budget breakdowns were.

Suppose that a bunch of people decided to take away your right to marry. Would I blame you if you failed to change their minds? Is the responsibility on those who's rights are being voted away to mount a defense, or do we have a constitution that guarantees equal rights?

Would you like the country to vote up or down on your rights?

"Another of the advertisements used video of an elementary school field trip to a teacher’s same-sex wedding in San Francisco to reinforce the idea that same-sex marriage would be taught to young children.

“We bet the campaign on education,” Mr. Schubert said."

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/15/us/polit...

Use children as your spearhead. How "Christian" of you.

This whole thing was engineered by them:

Robb and Robin Wirthlin's Story

http://www.protectmarriage.com/video/view /...

The Wirthlins Hit the Road for Hate

http://www.miketidmus.com/blog/2008/10/25 /... /

Mass couple pushes Prop 8

http://ebar.com/news/article.php?sec=news& ...

"In the suit, the Wirthlins said the school was attempting to indoctrinate their children about an "immoral lifestyle." The suit complained that school officials bypassed their parental rights to raise their children how they wish, and in doing so, violated their civil rights.

The Wirthlins lost their legal battle - the U.S. Supreme Court just declined to hear the case, letting the lower court ruling stand - but they are far from losing the war. They are part of the out-of-state effort by the Mormon Church, whose members have contributed millions of dollars to the Yes on 8 war chest, to pass Prop 8.

Chip White, a spokesman for Yes on 8, confirmed that the Wirthlins are members of the Mormon Church."

But they were up against a far more powerful force? Is that your position?

The opponents appeared to hit all the right buttons, but didn't really have the resources to fight it all the way down to the wire. They were up against a more powerful force, but didn't see it coming until too late.

Shouldn't they have modified their strategy to account for their resources? What was the strategy?

They lost.

So the question is how we can win in the future?

I don't think the majority should be voting on the rights of a protected minority. But if we do have to fight it in the voting booths then a chapter will have to be taken from Harvey Milk's strategies for defeating the Briggs Initiative. Which was to make the struggle personal for all voters. To not allow gays to be depersonalized in the media and made out to be the despised "other".

If this is the way it's going to happen it is going to need a shitload of dough and a very organized ground game.

I saw NO opposition. :shrug:

Which is carrying coals to Newcastle. They should have been running them in all counties in California. I remember an earlier post of yours where you proposed a 58 county strategy which I think about (and like) a lot. We need a guy like Dean to get the cobwebs out in CA.

I'm glad someone remembers it 6 weeks later. :D

I'm reply #30 in there, lauding your genius! :D

Thank you! :D

and commented about just after the election, was that while the No on 8 campaign but a good bit of TV airtime and had good ads, I didn't see as much non-TV presence as I'd like. For example, walking around in the Castro area before the election, there were a lot of small signs in the windows of businesses, but I didn't see a single billboard or bus ad, and even the window signs were muted - I only saw them because I was looking for them.

I did see people out campaigning on the street in downtown and other areas in the 3-4 days before the election but I was actually surprised at how little impact there was walking around. I thought the city would be absolutely bedecked in No on 8 signs. I'm in San Francisco, don't know how it was in the rest of the state but I had the impression that the Yes on 8 crowd had a much higher profile. Even in the Bay Area, they seemed to be ahead in yard sign visibility etc. - not in SF itself (where I saw virtually none) but certainly in the greater Bay Area.

i won't get into what groups up here in norcal were involved because it will get deleted but they were also instrumental in getting out the yes on hate supporters covering corners all over norcal.

What groups might opponents have drawn on to counter the church groups?
How might opponents have otherwise overcome the organization and demographics?
How might opponents have shifted the demographics?

no ground game + muddled/timid message. i'll add lack of outreach to people of color (via advertising, for example).

K&R this post too. I've been wondering about this since the 5th. Everyone should read this article.

"We had an enormous grass-roots advantage," Schubert says. "Our core was people of faith, and we were able to organize through churches." In the end, he says, the campaign visited 70 percent of all California households in person, and contacted another 15 percent by phone.

Same way Prop 2 passed here in Florida. And our No On 2 campaign was well run and very visible.

Why couldn't the non-bigot argument prevail? How might the non-bigot argument prevail in the future?

There were nationwide polls (no idea what the requirements were to participate, etc) done during ours that showed the percentage of Americans favoring gay marriage is around 31-33%.

As to the second question, we just need to work to change minds and attitudes and leave the rest to attrition. Keep plugging that it is a right, and that letting religion trump human rights is wrong.

I absolutely agree. I guess the question I'm asking here is HOW. How do you change minds and attitudes? What are the tactics and strategies to move opinion among different groups? The polls apparently showed NO winning by some significant percentage as recently as three months before the election. What happened?

is how do you change a deep-rooted belief? I think far too much of this is based on words in a book.

In Florida, NO was never winning that I recall. It was often 50/50, and it didn't landslide here in the end. That's only because they worded it in a way that also took rights away from hetero civil partners, which we tried to exploit. It barely got the 10% majority it needed to pass. No On 8 was done much better than ours.

Most success I've had is with people that increasing work with/live next to/are friendly with folks that are gay. I think they then (can I say this without vomiting) "humanize" being gay. It stops just being words in a book. "So you want to go tell Larry in accounting, whom we eat with every day, that he shouldn't be able to marry Jim, who, btw, you danced with at the Christmas party and really like?" hits them like a hammer.

So, you think "humanizing" and "personalization" is the best strategy going forward? OK. That's an answer.

:thumbsup:

but it's worked for me, but I'm very small scale. I'm very interested in this thread and the ideas of others. Thanks for starting it.

their churches were under attack, every slimy right wing trick you can think of, those good Christians used it.

It's hard to think about something as abstract as "bigotry" when someone tells you your child is in danger of being propagandized.

Let's assume that the proponents of this despicable act will put forth the slimiest and most sickening sort of arguments. How do we defeat them? Do you rebut? Shift topic? Develop a message and stick with it, regardless of their arguments? If so, what message? If a combination, what sort of combination? You seem to have a thesis here: the proponents put forth concrete arguments based on fear and focusing on children. The opponents made abstract claims about bigotry. So, essentially, the abstract arguments about bigotry were unable to overcome the concrete arguments deploying fear and focusing on people's children. So is your claim that abstract arguments about bigotry don't work? Why not?

:)

:-)

I did feel a little irritated with the no response of 'how dare they, that's horrible!' and then taking a week or two to come up with an answer ad, when that argument from the pro-8 people was totally predictable. To be perfectly honest, I was rather surprised at how mild the Yes on 8 campaign was, at least in terms of the TV ads. I expected them to reach a lot farther down into the slime bucket.

And although the No ad featuring 'screwing the constitution' was very clever and probably played well with under-30s, it made an intellectual rather than an emotional pitch, and this is an emotive issue. Putting on my film guy hat for a moment, I'd say there was too much tell and not enough show, few of the No on 8 ads went straight for the heartstrings.

as well as the older generation simply dying out and the younger one taking over. Younger voters are much more friendly to gay marriage than their parents and especially their grandparents are. In time, gay marriage will be a reality. That you can take to the bank. How do we change the situation now so gays don't have to wait years for their right to marry? I think by doing exactly what we've been doing. In 2000 the anti-gay marriage measure prop 22 passed with 61: of the vote. This time it passed with 52%. We only need a few more percent, and we knocked it down 9 points in eight years.

There has been progress. It has been too slow and it isn't enough, but progress nevertheless.

and I didn't say anything...

But why did we lose? There are numerous studies of the nazi seizure of power, and the good ones include analysis of the tactical and strategic missteps of the SPD and KPD, not just little slogans. So why did we lose on Prop 8? What could WE have done differently?

That's my choice anyway. The CA. Supreme Court decision should have been honored. Instead special interest groups utilized our Prop system to weasel through an amendment to our State Constitution.

Saying it shouldn't have happened is fair enough, but no excuse for failing to defeat it.

I'm fine with either way, I find it to be a fountain of bad law and embarrassing legislation.

Why can't the legislature do that?

We do not have Initiatives here in CT. We do have ballot questions. CT voters soundly defeated such a question on holding a Constitutional Convention. It was proposed directly as a result of our state Supreme Court's wonderful decision affirming gay marriage. But such a convention would have opened up lots of bad things like restrictions on Roe v. Wade and on union rights. What we had was a coalition of opponents (some, like me, fell into all 3 categories).

there's a good chance that this prop 8 will run into legal trouble, especially because its language is so basic. The entire constitutional amendment reads 'Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California', which might well put it in conflict with other constitutional provisions and thus cause it to end up in the CA supreme court. But I think that even though the proponents were probably aware of that, they made it uber-simple so they could field the 'will of the people' argument if that occurs.

it wasn't our time... Prop 8 might have passed in NYS this year...

I mean, gays got a smack down. It wasn't the end of the world or the end of this fight. It goes on.

We lost prop 8 cause no one wanted to stand up and fight for gay marriage, while the other side wanted nothing more then to fight the fight...

From Estimated Prophet - "My time come any day... Don't worry about me no..."

Our time will come...

I don't think we could have done much better this year. We lost this one but it ain't over...

peace and low stress...

ps- as far as what we could have done differently... I don't know that anything would have worked... It just didn't seem winnable this year.

Prop 22 passed in 2000 with a 21% victory margin. Prop 8 eked out a victory with a little less than 5%.

In eight years the margin of support for a ban on same-sex marriage fell by more than 16%. If it's not legal in CA by 2012 I'll be shocked.

we did more than 10 points BETTER this time which should shut down that myth.

The whole rainbow of young people are on board. The courts will decide this but, it should be some comfort that the electorate will also get it done and soon. :toast:

It sought to oberturn a court ruling, and will likely be overturned by the very court it sought to nullify.

A testament to the power of bad ideas.

First, too many outright lies in a very (unfortunately) effective Yes on 8 campaign.

Second, I think there was too much complacency among the "middle"; non-activist mainstream voters who just didn't give it much thought but also among the LGBT active community who didn't think it had much chance of passing.

Third, so much attention to the Presidential race and all the woes of our economy distracted us from that one and a dozen or more propositions.

I was shocked and dismayed that it passed, I didn't think citizens in my state were that insensitive or that gullible or that distracted.

and the No people did not

I am not sure how significant the media campaign was.


In all honesty canvassing I found a lot of Democrats who voted for it because of what their local church said about it.


The No on 8 should have made a stronger effort to engage minority churches and explain it as a civil rights issue.

We let it slip, we could have prevented it's passage with better organization and outreach effort, IMHO.

I never thought it would pass and totally underestimated the effectiveness of the pro-8 campaign, and was full strength busy with Obama and McNerney, our congressman.

What, in your mind, would be the best persuasive strategy to mobilize the kind of support opponents needed?

To the "typical" on the fence or disinterested voter, the vast majority who didn't care strongly either way, I'd have used comparisons to the plight of other groups to find equity before the law in the past, mixed race marriages for example, and equal rights efforts of other sorts in the past.

In other words, an appeal to one's sense of fairness and equity with comparisons to others.

I don't think the persuasion needed to be particularly strong, just simple comparisons and to make a simple case that it's a matter of simple basic human rights.

This simple approach, however, then needed to be brought to the greatest number of voters, through the greatest number of outlets (not just the media), chains of emails, church and community meetings, and it could have been folded in with local and state races, but it wasn't consistently.

These steps, along with a solid effort to debunk the lies of the pro-8 campaign, would I think have mad the difference.

Different groups have their own interests. Of course it's common for every single group in American culture to represent itself as the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950's and 60's, because that Movement has taken opn ideological significance in cultural terms. It's an easy go-to category for that reason, but also less and less effective as it gets used. The "civil rights movement" comparison, in other words, probably has diminishing rhetorical returns. That's A. For B, you have at least one group that simply doesn't buy it; I think large numbers of African Americans simply don't buy the civil rights analogy (as an argument...I understand that marriage equality is considered a civil right in itself, rather than merely as a rhetorical move, but that's neither here nor there). So what happens? The argument fails. It doesn't land. It doesn't produce effects. So, what is to be done? Examine the structure and presentation of the argument. Examine the audience. Revise. Try again.

But this much is clear: If people don't believe that it is a civil rights issue, simply repeating that it is will not move anybody. You have to argue from their assumptions, or obliterate their assumptions. At this point, the argument seems to be talking past people. It makes the hardcore feel good to keep repeating thusly, but it accomplishes almost nothing. Second, if a person doesn't believe that he or she is a bigot based on this issue, simply repeating that he or she is a bigot will accomplish nothing. You have to show how you come to that conclusion in a way that doesn't alienate the hearer. It takes more work. It's harder and slower. Conversion's a tough thing.

Many reject the comparison, don't feel it's a civil rights issue, and if that's their point of departure a different strategy is called for.

I have found that appealing to one's sense of the golden rule is sometimes effective in such cases, ie: how would you feel? (I mean, good god, what's the harm?)

And there is no single silver bullet approach, and some will simply not be swayed and the effort is better spent on others.

This proposition could have failed with a bit more well directed effort.

Who do you have to interface with to get that kind of grassroots support mobilized, and what are the available means of persuasion to mobilize those groups?

Obama and local candidates.

It was widely thought that 8 didn't stand a chance.


Now you just have to make an announcement and you would have tens of thousands of volunteers. They had a parade in San Diego and we had 30,000.


I am hoping that we don't need to go to the ballot again that the Supreme Court will classify the change as a major revision and require legislation to ammend the constitution.

but what about Fresno? Bakersfield? Stockton? Redding? :shrug:

Ignoring the Valley isn't the way to get a statewide movement going.

Ramping up a statewide organization from scratch to defeat ONE proposition or elect ONE candidate is a huge waste of time and energy.

There should be networks already in place in EVERY county during EVERY election. But there aren't.

He recruited Mormon money and he faked out the anti-H8 leadership to believe he would not fight them very hard.

Without that Mormon money, older voters and the steamroller from the Catholic Church in the last 3 weeks, I doubt it would have passed.

Also, the anti-H8 people bear some responsibility for allowing themselves to be faked out and for running a bad campaign. They even conceded before the vote was entirely counted, which is a mistake in California.

before election day. I thought Samuel L. Jacksons ad was particularly well done.

Considering the current occupant of the Holy See's (No not the candy, though I consider that holy too!) opinion on the subject, a stronger campaign should have been expected.

yes was trailing by around 15% and i felt pretty good and then i read a few articles about how people were generally not in favor of taking away someone's right when it was found to be constitutional and once again i felt pretty good and i was ultimately proved wrong. I did not do enough personally and i will never be comfortable with any lead in the polls ever again.

by a shrewd PR machine and I bought it.

I see that he went out of his way to fake out the gay community -- with softer statements and awards to gay community workers, for example. We can never misunderestimate this man again. He has a sort of friendly geeky appearance which he exploits to wrong foot his opponents. :(

Your political judgment is obviously off, since you claimed for months that Obama couldn't possibly win.

I want to hear the thoughts of people who don't have such an embarrassing track record of misreading the electorate.

:hi:

You can google it...

If that applies, there you go, if not, sorry. But that is the truth. The voters, including the voters against 8 who stayed home are precisely to blame.

but there was absolutely no effort at opposition at all. In fact it was even worse than that. I was going to put up a sign but I couldn't find out where to get one. Meanwhile 3 different people showed up at my door asking if they could put up Yes on 8 signs. Naturally I chased them away. When I finally saw a No on 8 sign I stopped at the house and asked the owners where they got the sign. I got a phone number from them and called it to ask if they could get me one. I never got a response so I called again. They couldn't deliver one to me because I live in a remote location, so I offered to come by and pick one up at a set time. I was sure to ask if someone would be there when I stopped by and was assured they would. They weren't there so I said fuck it, I guess no one really cares.

I voted against it but not very many people in our area did. It got over 70% yes vote in our county.

What arguments will make sense for those people? Is even 10% moveable, so to speak?

It's hard to blame the arguments for why they voted like they did. It's almost like nobody gave a shit about us hicks, figuring there was no way we'd ever oppose this amendment.

That's my point. There was NO ORGANIZED OPPOSITION to Prop 8 in our area. Any argument at all would have swayed a few people. It's a civil rights issue, maybe even a human rights issue and most people are amenable to arguments in favor of these issues. But nobody was there to put forth those arguments.

Message dissemination, a problem.

Thanks for the answer :thumbsup:

Nobody gave a shit about us hicks.

None, nada, nothing.

I did see lying ads in favor. LOTS of lying ads in favor.

I think the opposition needed statewide organization and a statewide message.

But most of all, I blame the California democratic party and the fact that they totally ignore 3/4 of the state every election.

The top entry in my journal is a rant about it:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/XemaSab

What might opponents of Proposition 8 have done differently?

I wish I knew.

of what exit polling had shown. Perhaps the vote was flipped?

From CNN:

"In California exit polls reported thus far tonight, Proposition 8 appears to be going down to a narrow 52 percent to 48 percent defeat."

So, the official vote tally was in fact exactly that, 52 to 48 percent....except for the "defeat" part, the exit polling was spot-on. Incredible isn't it?

Yes, even in here liberal California-- I guess you could say there was the Brokeback Mountain effect (it was widely assumed that it would win Best Picture and it was liberal Hollywood, but ended up losing, many believe, because some people were still a little uncomfortable with the gay thing). Basically, it showed that while most of the very visible Hollywood people seemed liberal and pro-gay, it wasn't really representative of everyone in the Academy. I think people had that same misconception about California.

It seems obvious that CA would choose the more progressive option but unfortunately, when you go 30-40 minutes outside of San Francisco or LA, California is not that different from North Carolina. I would say that VERY little outreach was done in those areas by the No on Prop 8-- when I went home for a weekend to my suburb only 35 minutes from SF, all I could see were Yes on Prop 8 signs. And I saw no one doing any tabling or flyers from the No on Prop 8 people. I saw a ton of people from the Obama campaign though. But then you go to San Francisco, and there's No on Prop 8 activity EVERYWHERE. That's nice, but San Francisco does NOT need that much convincing. If they had focused a little more on places outside the big cities, they would've made more progress.

:thumbsup:

that has a 50% failure rate

the proponents ran a well-oiled machine.

given even a remotely credible excuse, people will do hateful things to a minority. There are plenty of examples of the principle that have nothing to do with gender orientation.