I'd say that most African / American and Latino's might be catholics and support the ban on gay marriage

I say, the only threat to the institution of marriage is divorce.

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Not being married myself, I would only guess that this is about changing the meaning of what "marriage" is and has been for Millennia (it also changes the meaning of words like "husband" and "wife"). No problem about having an expression like "civil union", though.

Maybe if they didn't try to emulate Betty Davis they'd have better luck.

I still find this amazing that most of the areas of CA went 2-1 Obama and banned this. How on earth did that happen? And why is this even an issue to vote on? WHO CARES. Gay couples should have every right to experience the misery of straight couples... and even the joy in some cases. WHY on earth do people care so much about this????

I believe this was a failure in advertising by the opponents of the amendment. Because it is usually white voters who usually vote for this type of measure, probably little or no money was spent trying to convince minorities about how big of a civil rights issue this is. If they had done that, the amendment would have not passed.

We're overlooking the group that heavily funded this "marriage is between one man and one woman" campaign of intolerance: The Mormon Church.

that, my friends, is irony.

Mormons Dare to Define Marriage

Vigilante, I never thought of the economic factors involved with gay marriage. Interesting point.

I think the way California handled this was actually pretty cool, and I wish citizens got to vote on more laws like this.

I'm 50/50 on gay marriage... I think gay couples should have the same rights as hetero couples, but the term "Marriage"... It just means different things to so many people. And I think so many traditions in our country are fading away, maybe the term marriage is one of the sacred things that we can just keep as it has historically been...

As far as blacks and latinos providing more support for the ban...? Maybe religion has a lot to do with it...?

Vigilante wrote:

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Good point and love the new avatar.

As a Latino who supports gay marriage, but has several friends and family members who do not, I can only say that some of the old cultural "machismo" expectations still exist.

I totally support gay marriage. If two consenting adults wanna get married that's their business. It is also the Florists business and the catering halls business and the photographers business and the honeymoon resorts business. In other words it's more business for people at a time when our economy is hurting. If gay people wanna spread the money around on a ritual that straight people have been 50% successful at so be it.

Since JC has such a large GLBT community anyone have any thoughts?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ ... 1/06/AR2008110603880.html
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Most of California's Black Voters Backed Gay Marriage Ban
53% of Latinos Also Supported Proposition 8

By Karl Vick and Ashley Surdin
Washington Post
Friday, November 7, 2008

LOS ANGELES, Nov. 6 -- Any notion that Tuesday's election represented a liberal juggernaut must overcome a detail from the voting booths of California: The same voters who turned out strongest for Barack Obama also drove a stake through the heart of same-sex marriage.

Seven in 10 African Americans who went to the polls voted yes on Proposition 8, the ballot measure overruling a state Supreme Court judgment that legalized same-sex marriage and brought 18,000 gay and lesbian couples to Golden State courthouses in the past six months.

Similar measures passed easily in Florida and Arizona. It was closer in California, but no ethnic group anywhere rejected the sanctioning of same-sex unions as emphatically as the state's black voters, according to exit polls. Fifty-three percent of Latinos also backed Proposition 8, overcoming the bare majority of white Californians who voted to let the court ruling stand.

The outcome that placed two pillars of the Democratic coalition -- minorities and gays -- at opposite ends of an emotional issue sparked street protests in Los Angeles and a candlelight vigil in San Francisco. To gay rights advocates, the issue was one of civil rights. Attorney General Edmund G. "Jerry" Brown Jr. reworded the ballot language to state that a yes vote was a vote to "eliminate the rights of same-sex couples to marry."
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That appeal ran head-on into a well-funded and well-framed advertising campaign in favor of the ban -- and the deeply ingrained religious beliefs of an African American community that largely declined to see the issue through a prism of equality.

"I think it's mainly because of the way we were brought up in the church; we don't agree with it," said Jasmine Jones, 25, who is black. "I'm not really the type that I wanted to stop people's rights. But I still have my beliefs, and if I can vote my beliefs that's what I'm going to do.

"God doesn't approve it, so I don't approve it. And I approve of Him."

The overwhelming rejection of same-sex marriage by black voters was surprising and disappointing to gay rights advocates who had hoped that African Americans would empathize with their struggle.

"I wasn't surprised by the Latinos," said Steve Smith, senior consultant for No on 8. "Basically, Latinos and the Anglo population were fairly close. The outlier of the proposition was African Americans. Many are churchgoing; many had ministers tell them to vote."

Indeed, Proposition 8 promoters worked closely with black churches across the state, encouraging ministers to deliver sermons in favor of the ban.

"What the church does is give that perspective that this is a sacred issue as well as a social issue," said Derek McCoy, African American outreach director for the Protect Marriage Campaign. "The reason I feel they came out so strong on the issue is one, for them, it's not a civil rights issue, it's a marriage issue. It's about marriage being between a man and a woman and it doesn't cut into the civil rights issue, about equality.

"The gay community was never considered a third of a person."