Congress
Buyers’ Remorse: Prop 8 won by 4 percent and change — 52 percent to 48 percent. In a new poll from SurveyUSA, 8 percent of people who voted for Prop 8, a more than sufficient number to tip the vote the other way, said they had changed their minds:
Of the adults who tell SurveyUSA they voted FOR Prop 8, 90 percent of them told us recent rallies held by “No on Prop 8″ Protesters have not changed their minds about the issue. 8 percent say protesters have changed their minds.
On the status of California’s 20,000 or so gay married couples, 59 percent said their marriages should remain legal. Thirty-four percent said the marriages should be annulled immediately. This is interesting because 34 percent is also roughly the percentage both of California voters who are Republicans and who approve of the job performance of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Oh, and bias alert. The SurveyUSA article on the poll was titled, “No on Prop 8 Protesters Have Not Changed Many Minds in California.” Not “many,” certainly, but “enough” — and that is what counts.
Topics: Congress
I’ll bet more than that would change their votes if folks simply sat down and educated one another. I’ve got relatives and friends in Cali who voted in favor of Prop 8 out of sheer ignorance of what the passage of this proposition really meant for California. No one explained to the them that this was about way more than ending gay marriage. A great many of my saved, sanctified, Holy Ghost filled relatives were revved up by the hype perpetuated by the Mormons and Catholics. The rest, who are straight, were just indifferent in the voting booth because they didn’t know anything much about Prop 8. They were not informed that ripping the rights and freedoms from gays is where fascists usually start in ripping the rights and freedoms away from every smaller, less powerful faction of society that is not part of the larger majority whose power is only equal to their numbers. They didn’t realize until it was too late that the right wing nuts needed their support to sustain the majority rule that kept their will the law of the land, laws that now in no wise reflect their best interest at all.
These folks need to know that the laws of this land are not Biblically based, as I’ve heard way too many televangelists errantly claim. Furthermore, the Ten Commandments are an expanded exegesis of two basic tenets that flow throughout the Bible: Love God above all creation, and Love your neighbor as you love yourself. So, let’s start loving one another by first ceasing to criminalize and penalize each other for everything we don’t understand about each other. There is a separation of church and state that is still CONSTITUTIONAL, no matter what some of these pastors are telling their congregants. The government can’t tell the churches to whom they must offer their sacrements. And, the churches don’t get to rewrite our Constitution to withold rights and deprive targeted factions of our population of the liberties and freedoms aforded all men EQUALLY!
I’m anti-prop 8 (irrelevant since I’m in Texas) but this poll doesn’t really mean anything. It doesn’t list any margin of error, and it doesn’t take into account any people who voted no who would change their votes. Not that there would be a lot, but still, it counts.