Thanks for sharing this. Once again, people of color (specifically African Americans, largely) are scapegoated when - even if all African Americans voted as a bloc together, which obviously did not happen - that 10% of the vote would not be enough on its own to win or lose this election. The group that has this particular power is white people - but, of course, whites aren't even typically viewed as a "group" to begin with, so that wouldn't even cross many people's minds.
Also interesting to note the generational divide - that for all the nasty things said or thought about young people, at the risk of sounding cheesy - that's where some of the hope is.

Monday-morning quarterbacking knows no sexual orientation or gender identity, nor political party or campaign (witness the McCain/Palin post-election meltdown). There were tears in our interracial household shed on November 4th when the 270 electoral map went sufficiently blue so as to signal a significant moment in history. The narrow success of Proposition 8 also signals such a moment, but in the latter case it seem obvious that this moment, when viewed over a longer period of time and from the later vantage point of less passion, as a momentary plateau in the move toward equality. I deeply regret and condem the racism inherent in a lot of the post-mortems. We must proceed with all deliberate speed not to go there.

Any figures out there on racial/ethnic breakdown of gay marriage among YOUNG voters.

Not to rain on your parade, Crawford; but looking at Morehouse College, the premier university for young black men, things don't look very promising even with youth.

Michael -

thanks for linking to this. It is really important that good analysis of the exit polls (including questions about their accuracy) gets out.

One part of your post sticks out for me, though. You wrote, "While white LGBT activists are pointing fingers at African-American voters." It sticks out because I am reading it (perhaps mistakenly) as implying that "all" white LGBT activists are taking this position and that "white lgbt activists" are the only ones taking it.

The fact of the matter is that some (and maybe only "a small portion") of white LGBT activists (along with some non-white LGBT activists) are pointing fingers at African-American voters.

I am not sure if I am writing (as a white gay guy in California) to assure you that it isn't "all" white LGBT activists or to ask you to rethink how you are framing the issue. Maybe both.

Regardless, I can tell you without reservation that a lot of white LGBT folks in California do not blame African-American voters for Prop 8's passage and are making that position known in formal and informal ways every chance we get.

Of course, your intent may have never been to signify that "all" white LGBT activists were making these claims, but only to state the fact that there are white LGBT activists who are doing this. In which case, I'd simply echo your position that they are wrong to do so and add to it that (a) my experience is that their opinion is in the minority among white LGBT folks and (b) unfortunately, they are not alone in this mistaken belief (as some non-white people are voicing it as well).

The fact is that even if all African Americans voted for Prop 8 that's not enough to have swung the vote.

Not much is known about The CNN exit poll that's began all the race baiting and hysteria. My hunch is that it is a serious problem but not so much among ‘activists’ as it is among a layer of not so closeted racists who wanted an excuse to taunt blacks. One of the key questions we don’t know is which county was polled (it was only done in one county), and which precincts. We just don’t know but it makes a big difference if it was LA, Alameda or Riverside. Knowing that would let us judge the worth of CNN’s polling.

The main culprits in California were, in order of the harm they did, Obama/Biden and McCain/Palen, then the various flavors of christer cults and lastly some serious deficiencies in the No on 8 campaigns leadership resulting from their too close for comfort association with the Democrat Party.

No on 8 raised and spent a good deal more money that Yes on 8 but squandered it on Boy George themed ads that basically asked “Do you really want to hurt me.” Yes, they did. No on 8, as I feared and noted for the last three months abandoned the field of battle in minority communities and never made use of our allies in unions, MALDEF and the NAACP. They refused to criticize Obama/Biden for their open and repeated opposition to same sex marriage (SSM) and support for the imposition of second class citizenship with civil unions.

The result was as predictable as it was disastrous. Late in the campaign when the Yes on 8 bigots ran a very effective ad campaign using Obama’s narrow-minded bigotry about SSM against us No on 8 was dumfounded. They didn’t have any answers. Obama’s bigotry rather than his insulting last minute opposition to Prop 8 allowed 22% of self-described liberals, aka Democrats and 82% of Euroamerican Republicans to vote for Prop 8.

Obama is a right centrist politician who owes his victory to the rich and to christian bigots. They own him.

Please be careful about how you use statistics to support your assertions.

Nate Silver cites the statistics on "first-time voters," stating that they voted against Prop 8 by a margin of 62-38.

I don't see how you can then equate "first-time voters" to black voters. A "first-time voter" is just that - someone who is voting for the first time. No one ever said that the large number of black and Latino voters who turned out to vote for Obama were necessarily all "first-time voters."

Let's just look at the numbers for a second. Based on numbers on the Secretary of State's web site as of November 12...
6,068,393 votes YES (52.3%)
5,544,962 votes NO (47.7%)
11,613,355 votes TOTAL

If 10% of the voters were black, then there were about 1,161,335 black voters. And if they voted 70/30 in favor of Prop 8, then there were approximately
812,934 black votes YES (70%)
348,401 black votes NO (30%)

If we subtract those numbers from the overall votes, then we have
6,068,393 - 812,934 = 5,255,459 non-black votes YES (50.3%)
5,544,962 - 348,400 = 5,196,562 non-black votes NO (49.7%)

Therefore, Prop 8 would still have passed, even without black voters. But it would have been a LOT closer - only about 60,000 votes difference, not 500,000 votes.

So, black voters did have a huge impact on the outcome of that vote. And, as people have pointed out, black voters came out in record numbers, due to having Obama on the ballot.

Don't get me wrong - I'm not blaming Obama, and I'm not blaming blacks. Ultimately, I blame religion and bigotry - and "bigotry" is not limited to white people.

I find this Prop. 8 squabble depressing - if a white person wants to analyze voting patterns by race, there are ways to do this that don't involve blaming and racist rhetoric. Presenting the exit poll stats with a grain of salt regarding sample size and methodology, and understanding that one cannot dice small data sets into subsets and hope to get statistical trends, is basic. It is perfectly useless to blame, much more helpful to analyze dispassionately and to present findings in context with the rest of the poll info. One can analyze type and distribution of campaign efforts, speculate on reasons why certain people were not influenced and whether a different approach would have made a difference, and so on. People would be wise to remember that not all political activity must be electoral or lobby oriented. Basic public education about the issue needs to start WELL BEFORE the campaign season. Once the ads start hollering away, people get driven by emotion and not reason.

I just got off the phone from doing an interview with a local (mostly black) radio show with an African-American host.

Out of all of the calls, one person was lukewarm to our rights. The rest stood with us and called the African Americans vs gays controversy nothing more than what it is - an attempt to divide and conquer.