Election 2009 – No Surprises
Nov 4th, 2009 | By Hahn at Home | Read more in: GLBTQI followed the reporting throughout the day on the state of the elections across the country. Of particular interest to me personally were the attempts to repeal Same-Sex marriage in Maine and the domestic partnerships question on the Washington ballot.
As of this morning, we can count Maine a loss. Maine voters, with 87 percent reporting, have repealed the ability of queers to marry there by 53/47 percent.
In Washington, only half of the ballots are counted and it’s too close to call, but there is hope as the proposed law leads 51/49.
When put in the hands of our elected representatives, our batting average in successfully gaining rights is improving. Politicians see the value in providing rights to a voting portion of their constituencies. But, put before the people, and highly swayed by right wing religious factions, we lose. Over and over and over.
When I woke up, I had zero expectation that either would pass. The religious wingnuts have cohesive organization, adequate funds, and wild-eyed zealotry on their side.
And, I believe the biggest detriment to our success is us. What do we have? A mishmash of organizations, all with their hands out, developing strategies parallel to each other, but without cohesion. We also have a population who doesn’t have 100% voter turnout.
We are, potentially, 10 percent of the population, yet are expected to sway at least 41 percent of the rest of the population with our supposed political power – the power the California Supreme Court says we have and the very power they cited as a reason why we weren’t deserving of special protection from crazy voter initiatives like Prop 8.
If we can’t connect and involve 100% of our people in their own fight, how can we expect to sway the requisite numbers to our side? It’s going to take every one of us. Every single day. We have two years. What will you do?
Lori HahnAWOP contributing editor, GLBTQ
Author of Hahn at Home
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Amen! That’s another reason ya need lots of straight supporters too. Well thought out Lori. I do like the way you write girl.
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Very astute Lori, one of the biggest problems here was trying to get some influential folks we know are GLBT and either low key as their neighbors don’t know & they’re afraid some nutter will be the root cause of threats etc, or in highly visible positions in their companies and the company doesn’t know & they don’t want to have work trouble. I can understand those fears as for years I hid my Indian heritage from public view by registering as caucasian & making use of my non-Indian features bestowed on the family by an Irish-French redhaired great grandfather. The family members look like Cochise or dark skinned Irish, about a fifty fifty split.
Another huge problem at 1st was one you identify, lack of unity among numerous groups all in the same hymnal but singing different hymns. We managed to get the majority of them working in unison, but getting them to agree as to priorities and strategies was like herding cats. Lotsa frustration & scratches for the first months.
The things that finally defeated us though, was the last month’s continually aired ads containing blatently false info best described as fear mongering; the last month’s non-stop daytime roto-calls, push polls, and church groups manning phone banks(mostly Catholic, a large % of Mainers are decended from European Catholic heavy areas) and touting how the law would ruin the Catholic Church by undermining its authority(how??); the anti GLBT equality camp’s volunteers who monitored & posted rebuttals using insane ‘logic’ on news media forums, TV news outlet comment pages the same, and groups of 30 or more who responded to the state’s various newspaper editorial pages. The 30 or more ensured they had a shot at having a letter in every issue of even those papers who limit you to one letter to the editor per month; and lastly, semi- complacency best described as a false sense of knowing the playing field. We REALLY didn’t anticipate such a large increase in the last month prior to election day. By the time we realized the counter effort we’d put in place to combat the expected extra opposition toward the end was being out-spent by 5-1, volunteers they didn’t use until then were suddenly deployed EVERYWHERE their voices could be heard, and especially where there was no immediate rebuttal possible.
Next time we’ll be ready for those tactics, but having better intelligence to discover the dirty campaigning efforts is paramount as we learned. We SHOULD have sensed something was afoot when the Catholic Diocese in Portland loaned(with pay) a professional public affairs director in their employ who was local, fanatical in his opposition, and has unlimited access as a Church representative to the churches, legislature, administration, etc. It’s a fine line they walk, but they manage to remain legally operating. That he and those he recruited have years of forcing public opinion to change in favor of illogical, unethical, immoral, unpopular, and semi-legal issues throughout the state proved to be extremely effective, particularly true when the monetary floodgates opened wide the last month to pour out amounts more fitting of a Presidential or Governor’s race.
Old Injun going back to drawing board with friends to lick our wounds and plot how to ethically & fairly oppose those who are ethically, morally, and truth challenged and their dirty practices.
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