Nov 05 2008
Obama, yes. Gay marriage, no.
That is what the voters in Florida decided yesterday. While I was obviously happy about the first the second not only disappointed me but also confused me. How could a state that elected a left leaning liberal like Obama vote against gay marriage? Not by a small margin either but by a great big whopping 62.1%…while Obama received 50.9% of votes. I dunno…just seems odd to me that during an election that is being proclaimed as a giant victory for civil rights that the civil rights of so many would be smashed into smithereens.
And it wasn’t just Florida…even California is banning same sex marriage (I was seriously shocked with that as well) and Arizona (less shocked).
Does anyone else see the election of Obama and the ban on gay marriage as not going together or is it just me??
PS
By the way Florida had an average of 72.9% turn out which I think is pretty freaking wonderful and some counties had over 80%.
Oddly, you can credit both an Obama victory and a ban on equal rights largely to an overwhelming turnout of African American voters. Sounds weird, I know, but there is a great resentment towards the GLBT community on the part of the black community. It wasn’t just that, people of all backgrounds voted in favor of hate, and the Mormon church is specifically to blame for funding the bigotry.
Unfortunately, three’s probably right. Blacks and Hispanics are much more crazy — oops, I mean “religious” — than other demographics.
California completely shocked me - as you can see from my own post today - Florida’s got a large elderly population who probably come with a lot of outdated baggage on gay rights, but California? CALIFORNIA? That’s where “redcarpetsville” is located right? OK so I know there’s more to CA than LA but still, it’s California people!