Quote:
Originally posted by Say_hello_for_me
And then I'd expect the other 95% of the arguments to involve the use of words like "Nazi", "hate", "sin" yada yada yada.
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I live a suburb that votes extremelly liberally. We has a human rights law on the ballot a bit ago. although it extended its protection to many other groups beyond sexual orientation, the state had a parallel law that covered everything but. thus, despite council people saying it was not just a gay rights issue, it was.
the campaign was a very strange dynamic. Monaghan's group put money in for ads against the law. there were two basic arguments: We would be legally sanctioning that which god forbades. since this argument was being put forth by neighbors of gay couples, it was put forth as politely as one could (ie not like what's his name's "fag going to hell" rap). there was also a group who were, at least allegedly concerned about the need for a law.
the pro-law group didn't really answer this "need for a law group", and spent all its resources arguing the first group. of course, convincing someone of the first group's mindset to switch votes has roughly the same chance of winning, as someone here (PB) actually being convinced to change their vote on anything.
Letters to the editor were running 50/50 in the local weekly as the election approached. I was really nervous/pissed that it would be close, especially as I thought the second group raised a point that deserved an answer. I mean, in my neighborhood there is no harassment, so it have been largely symbolic, but still it seemed like a really bad symbol, if it failed.
Anyway, it passed overwhelmingly. The "anti" people felt strongly enough to voice their opinion more frequently than the pro people. That's why the paper was 50/50. The vote was 70/30.*
My point is that the people who would turn to vote Republican over this issue are a small group; they believe strongly, but I think would mostly vote Republican anyway.
On the other hand, I think that making this any kind of negative issue by the Republicans will turn off tons of middle of the ground voters. The Reps will look Neanderthal to lots of the main stream.
*on the other hand these things fail most places so maybe I'm wrong, and my sample is skewed. I'm just saying that the middle ground people who don't already know how they'll vote will not be single issue anti-gay voters. those that are single issue anti-gay voters are probably going with the Reps anyway because of abortion.
