How The Obama Victory Helped To Pass Proposition 8 In California

Despite winning the state of California by more than 3 million votes over John McCain back in November 2008, the huge victory coalition of voters that supported President Obama only worked to help pass the controversial antiGay marriage Proposition 8 in California. The fact of the matter is that voter turnout among many African American families with conservative church-going values split their votes between a vote for President Obama and a vote for Proposition 8. The Gallup organization has presented polling proof that the moral values among many African American families are just as conservative as among Republicans. Further, church attendance among African Americans is even higher than among Republicans at 76% compared to 67%, compared to just 50% among nonBlack Democrats.

While some religious groups, primarily members of the Episcopal faith and Jewish voters opposed Proposition 8, support for the measure was strong among many churches more likely to have mainly African American or Republican membership.

The fact of the matter is the big California victory of Obama brought out many voters who were not social liberals. Many voters were attracted to Obama as a candidate, yet were not sympathetic to the social goals of those in the Gay rights movement. Further most minority voters did not view their drives for equality under the law as similar to the goals among the Gay community for equality under the law. Couple this with the defeat in the Supreme Court by opponents of the measure, and it all leaves opponents of the Gay marriage ban in California as needing to either break down moral resistance to the issue among voters, as well as to shrink the overall voter pool by running a ballot measure to rescind the measure in the 2010 off-year elections.