This times op-ed about prop 8 and blacks also makes me mad. I haven't heard as much of this lately, but it was the really big thing the day after the election, pundits talking about how it was the black voters in California who were responsible for passing Prop 8. And like, yeah I know that was a part of it. I see the numbers they're using, and it does look like black people were largely in support of Prop 8. But this is where we get to people using statistics to argue whatever the hell they want, which is just about my biggest pet peeve.
I remember on the day after the election, a panel of people on CNN were discussing this phenomenon. And of the four, one woman was like, "Yes I know that black voters seemed to have been a part of this support for prop 8, but I don't think that's the most important statistic to be looking at". She said, "If you divide it by an age demographic, the proposition was overwhelmingly supported by the older generation, while younger voters were not in support of an amendment. So we can at least take something positive from that, that when this younger generation is the primary voting group, things will be different."
I totally agree with that. We know that minority groups tend to be more conservative, and so it is not surprising that they wouldn't support gay marriage. It really feels to me that when people play up that statistical angle, they are trying to fight two minority groups against each other. I feel like someone's trying to make me a part of a chicken fight, so that the general white populace can be like "oh my, look at how these two groups hate each other, that's too bad that black people prevented gay people from having the right to get married." We don't need to focus any anger or hatred at the black community, they've got plenty problems of their own to worry about.
If I did want to be angry and hateful, I would direct it toward the Mormons, who devoted such an enormous amount of money to supporting the proposition, despite the fact that they are also a minority group with marriage preferences outside of the norm, and so you might think that they might feel a little sympathy, or at least support the idea "live and let live." And if I really wanted to get angry, it would be at all the ignorant people who bought their jargon, for instance fearing that teaching gay marriage would become a requirement in kindergarten, thus making people's children gay. Really people, let's get some goddamn education out there so we don't have members of our populace with fears like that.