Obama did worse than Kerry among gay voters? What the hell?
[Update: I think Homer makes an excellent point. Very small sample size of gay voters, which might have led to inaccurate results.]
The Tin Man
Obama did worse than Kerry among gay voters? What the hell?
[Update: I think Homer makes an excellent point. Very small sample size of gay voters, which might have led to inaccurate results.]
They were Hillary supporters and were so ticked off that she lost to Obama…they stayed home. If they voted for McCain/Palin..then they were idiots!
That was my first thought, too: bitter Hillary queens.
Obama doesn’t support gay marriage on a Federal level, so why should the gays support him. I’m not American, but my partner, who voted Green in an absentee ballot because he couldn’t in all good conscience reconcile Obama’s views on same-sex marriage. Makes a whole helluva lot of a sense to me. But I must be a bitter Hillary supporter…
Their gay sample size was 78 voters.
Excellent point, Homer.
@Sean:
Given that marriage is a power reserved to the states, it really doesn’t matter all that much what a presidential candidate thinks about gay marriage as a stand-alone issue. It’s more important to consider the big picture of the candidate’s whole platform. If one is in favor of gay marriage, the questions one should ask about a presidential candidate are 1.) would he support repeal of DOMA and 2.) would he nominate SC justices who would be favorable toward expanding gay rights? Obama gets a yes on both counts.
I, too, know several gay Democrats who were really uncertain about Obama and are still upset that Hillary wasn’t the nominee. Umm…I don’t think any of them voted for McCain, though.
Look, Barack Obama is a politician, not a saint. I really don’t believe he has any actual opposition to same-sex marriage. I think the reality is that that’s just not where mainstream America is just yet. We’re generally kind of okay with “civil unions” but a lot of nice, normal people haven’t quite understood yet why “marriage” is so important. Being for same-sex marriage still seems crazy-progressive to a lot of people. Barack HAD to win this thing.
But there is hope. He actively courted LGBT people in the primaries and the general. He had a page on his campaign website devoted to LGBT issues — something Hillary NEVER had. (Go to her current NY senate webpage and see if you can find anything – ANYTHING – about gay rights.) He has said openly that he wants DADT gone and, more importantly, supports the full repeal of DOMA. (Hillary wanted half of it stripped.) Now, given that Obama is an expert on constitutional law and used to lecture on the subject at the U. of Chicago, he knows precisely what a repeal of DOMA will do to the legal landscape in this country. He may not have come out swinging for same-sex marriage during the campaign, but I’d rather he won so that he can make good on that promise to repeal DOMA.