An article in the Washington Post looks at data from the November 6, 2012, for the four states that saw same anti-gay marriage measures defeated in each instance. What is so interesting is that even in precincts that Romney carried by large margins, the anti-gay effort lost. In short, significant numbers of Republicans ignored the Christofascist drafted GOP party platform (hate group leader Tony Perkins was a principal drafter) and instead voted for marriage equality. The GOP's anti-gay positions have already cost the party the vast majority of voters under 30. Now, the evidence suggest that anti-gay initiatives may no longer be working as envisioned by the Christofascists even with many in the over 30 age brackets. Poll after poll shows that only in the over 65 age group does an anti-gay agenda resonate and guess what? That anti-gay demographic is literally dying off with each passing elections cycle and being replaced by non-religious extremists. Will the GOP get the message that the party's institutionalized homophobia may increasingly be a liability? I'm not going to hold my breath. Here are some article excerpts:
After years of defeats, same-sex-marriage advocates scored a remarkable 4-0 sweep of state ballot contests on Nov. 6. One major reason: This year, significant numbers of Republicans voted their way. That should give pause to a GOP establishment that has alienated many younger voters and independents with its stance on the issue and now faces the prospect of dissent among its core constituents as well.
The evidence comes straight from a close study of the election returns in Maryland, Maine and Minnesota. (Washington state, with its unique system of mail voting, has been slower to report its results in detail. I’ve based my analysis on the other three states that had same-sex-marriage contests.)
The Maryland ballot referendum, Question 6, essentially asked voters to confirm or reject a new law allowing same-sex marriage. In 11 of the 18 counties that Mitt Romney carried, Question 6 fared better than President Obama, a sign that GOP voters had crossed over in support. While the phenomenon could be seen everywhere from farm towns to blue-collar inner suburbs, the biggest swings tended to come in affluent bedroom communities. At one precinct in Hunt Valley, north of Baltimore, with 2,116 votes cast, there was a 28 percentage-point swing, leading to a landslide for Romney and the ballot question: Obama drew a paltry 37 percent, but Question 6 carried the precinct with a whopping 65 percent.
In Minnesota, where voters were asked to ban same-sex marriage through a state constitutional amendment, precinct returns show that suburban Republicans broke from their party in droves to defeat the ban. According to the Pioneer Press of St. Paul, 47 towns around the Twin Cities area voted for Romney while opposing the measure, known as Amendment One. Exurban Scott County, the state’s fastest growing, narrowly turned down Amendment One, even as it gave Romney a comfortable 56.5 percent of its vote.
[W]ithin commuting distance of the Twin Cities, the defections from the Republican line were deep and unmistakable. Romney won easily in such lakeside Hennepin County towns as Orono, Deephaven and Shorewood. Conventional wisdom would have them voting for the marriage ban as well — but they rejected Amendment One by 60 percent or more.
Maine voters were asked to legalize same-sex marriage through a referendum that lost narrowly in 2009. This time it won, with 53 percent of the vote. Again, Republicans helped secure the victory.
The Bangor suburb of Hampden voted both for Romney and for freedom to marry. The other four towns, all Portland suburbs — Cumberland, Falmouth, Yarmouth and Cape Elizabeth — went for Obama by votes ranging from 53 to 63 percent, and then in each case registered a further 10- to 13-point swing toward same-sex marriage.
So where next for the Republican Party on this issue? . . . . one plausible path would be a GOP call for leaving the issue to the states, with New York going one way, for instance, and Texas another. That would probably capture a consensus among a broad range of active Republicans, fit reasonably well with the party’s other ideological stands and still distinguish its position from the Democratic Party’s support for same-sex marriage in its 2012 platform. The GOP has left itself little room to maneuver.
Although many national polls now show support for marriage equality, the national Republican platform continues to endorse the same deeply out-of-touch proposal. If and when the party’s leadership changes its mind, a whole lot of suburban Republicans will be murmuring under their breath, “About time.”
Frankly, the quickest way for the GOP to regain popularity with younger voters and independents is to kick the Christofascists to the curb where they belong. Unfortunately, this will not be an easy task since the embrace of the Christofascists by the GOP has caused so many one time Republicans to flee the party and comfortably become independents or even Democrats.
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