Obama owns Prop 8

But he’s too big of a coward to step up and claim his prize.  Not a peep yet about the passage of prop 8 in California, but then again it isn’t surprising from a person who has no integrity and even less character.  Besides, he has his legions of adoring groupies to spin wildly ludicrous tales to explain away why some of his most ardent supporters helped strip millions of gay people of a basic civil right.  Even some of those gay people themselves.

Obama supports ELIMINATING RIGHTS

Until recently, one of those toadies was Andrew Sullivan, who is one of the most loathesome creatures on this earth.  But even he can see the hypocrisy of a campaign that promised hope and change, but brought discrimination and intimidation. 

The final analysis is pretty clear. There was a big overlap between new, largely black Obama voters and the forces for discrimination against gay married couples and our families:

From the Sacramento Bee:

Ironically, however, a mathematical analysis of voting and exit poll data indicates very strongly that it was exactly that pro-Obama surge that spelled victory for Proposition 8.

When Proposition 8’s passage first became apparent, it was widely assumed that hundreds of thousands of first-time or occasional voters had turned out to vote for Obama, then left the rest of their ballots blank, thus allowing more conservative voters to dominate ballot measures.

In fact, however, there was very little voting drop-off. There are still some late absentee and provisional ballots to be counted, but as of Monday, 10.96 million votes had been tallied in the presidential race and 10.85 million for and against Proposition 8.

And as if there were any question that it was Obama voters who pushed Prop 8 over the top…

Proposition 8, in fact, garnered 1.6 million more votes than McCain received. And, it’s apparent, many of those votes – enough to make the difference – came from African American and Latino voters drawn to the polls by Obamamania.

An overwhelming, but not surprising, 94 percent of the former supported Obama, exit polling indicated, while 74 percent of Latinos voted for the winner. But 70 percent of African Americans also voted for Proposition 8, as did 53 percent of Latino voters.

Last week, however, 10 percent of voters were African American while 18 percent were Latino, and applying exit poll data to that extra turnout reveals that the pro-Obama surge among those two groups gave Proposition 8 an extra 500,000-plus votes, slightly more than the measure’s margin of victory.

I have to add that I find it a bit disquieting that Latinos are lumped in as contributing to the passage of the bill.  While the majority of latinos did vote for the proposition, which indicates an intolerable level of homophobia in the latino community as well, it is not nearly as high as the level of support from the black community, which also voted for Obama almost 10 to 1.  White support neared 50 percent as well.  I am not arguing that homophobia is only a problem for African Americans.  But no other voting block voted for Obama in such high numbers either.

The excuse being tossed about this past couple of days is that it isn’t black homophobia, but rather the importance of the church in the black community.  This is another lie to avoid taking responsibility for bigotry.  Homophobia is homophobia no matter what the source.  And I think that they are overstating the role that religion plays in determining the level of homophobia.  As Sully points out, other religious minorities weren’t so intolerant:

Black liberals were the critical voting bloc. Jewish liberals voted overwhelmingly against Prop 8, to offer a simple contrast. Obama has always opposed marriage equality, even splitting with his own church on the issue. In California, he got his way.

From the JTA article:

On Proposition 8, Jewish Angelinos voted 78 percent against the ban while only 8 percent supported the ban, according to the survey of 1,200 voters in 50 precincts. The remainder declined to respond. The Jews’ vote against the ban was the highest proportion of any ethnic or religious group.

California voters approved the proposition, 52-48 percent.

Los Angeles Jewish voters also voted overwhelmingly for Barack Obama, giving him 78 percent of votes to 20 percent for John McCain. The president-elect’s Jewish numbers in Los Angeles matched the percentage nationwide.

So Jewish Supporters of Obama voted in almost the exact same numbers against the propostion.  It appears that it was basically one group that supported Obama and also Prop 8 in overwhelming numbers.  It is time for them to own that bigotry, and it is time for Obama to own it as well.

SILENCE=DEATH