Since they placed the Constitutional Amendment to ban gay marriage on next November's ballot, the entire issue is backfiring on Wisconsin's extreme right wing. Now we have a poll by WisPolitcs.com that shows the issue is a dead heat:
WisPolitics Poll: Anti-Gay Marriage Amendment Splits Wisconsinites
7/9/2006
...The poll, conducted June 18-19, has a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Here is the question:
...If approved, (the proposal) would be placed in the state constitution. The proposed language reads, and I am quoting now, "Only a marriage between one man and one woman shall be valid or recognized as marriage in this state. A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized in this state."
VOTE FOR: 48.5 percent
VOTE AGAINST: 47.8 percent
DON'T KNOW/REFUSED: 3.7 percent
The more important finding is this:
But the most intense reading appeared to come from self-identified liberals in opposition, meaning the fight against the amendment could help bring out Democratic-leaning voters this November.
Created as a wedge issue designed to embarrass Democratic Party candidates, and to bring out social conservatives at the polls on election day, Wisconsin's November vote may also do quite a bit of the opposite, helping Jim Doyle in the process.
Also of notice is the treatment of the subject in Sunday's Wisconsin State Journal. The Your Views section covered the subject, but was eclipsed by Scott Milfred's commentary:
Young will grow older and legalize gay marriage
...As a barely young person, I guarantee you that support for gay marriage among the younger generations of Americans is only going to increase.
And eventually this narrow majority of support for gay marriage will become an overwhelming majority among the young. And people like me will increase support among the old folks, too.
It's a given. It's a done deal.
It's why, before too long, gays and lesbians will marry throughout the United States.
There's nothing the opponents of gay marriage can do to stop this from happening. All they can hope for -- and they certainly are hoping and fighting hard for this -- is that it will be later than sooner.
While I do not share Milfred's trust that it is a done deal, as social conservatives are certain to 'swift-boat' the issue as long as they are breathing, there is no question that those under forty have a far more mature understanding of the issue than their seniors.
As I said in a post the last week of March (one of four on the subject):
This is an invitation to Charlie Sykes to complete the thought he started in his Isthmus piece, GAY MARRIAGE AMENDMENT: I'M UNDECIDED and oppose this unnecessary and mean spirited constitutional amendment. Sykes wrote:
There’s a reason this November’s vote on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage may be defeated:
Conservatives who, like me, are undecided...
...Gays who wish to marry don’t want to tear down marriage. They want in on it.Charlie, you answered your own questions. Let me make a suggestion -go talk to young people..the generation under 30,no 35. While the Madison West High student body is probably more liberal than most, I recall a recent survey that showed two things that ought to make us older partisans take note: these kids overwhelmingly oppose affirmative action and support gay rights, including marriage. There is a little slap along side the head for both the left and the right.
Frankly this younger generation is bit befuddled by all of this anger over gay rights. They were raised in an environment of openness and honesty about gays and they are going to carry that into their adulthood.
Charlie, come on over.
The marriage amendment passed with 57% of the vote in Oregon and 59% in Michigan, not exactly red states, in fact blue the last two Presidential elections. Both these initiative were on the ballot when John Kerry was winning these states in the 2004 election. Therefore, based on previous outcomes (better predictors than a 500 sample poll), there are more conservatives who care about and vote in favor of this issue than liberals who vote against it.
Moreover, this poll surveyed adults, not even registered voters or likely voters - a bad survey for a ballot initiative.
Regardless of the real lack of predictive factor this poll is, if I were running the pro-amendment side of this, I would use this poll to raise money and as an incentive to get conservatives to the polls. It will energize my base, not demoralize them.
Therefore, this poll doesn't help the anti-amendment side any more than the pro-amendment side, nor is it indicative of what the final results will be.
Posted by: dave | July 10, 2006 at 01:48 PM
The poll did not give a party breakdown which I was interested in. I am not sure how such a close poll could be read as a win for the no side. I think the amendment is outright silly and expect the majority of Wisconsinites will to.
In the end though, I think it will be conservatives that will defeat this amendment. I mean if you listen to the righties and all their talk of activist judges why would they want these important decision caught up in the courts. The latter part denies rights to not only gay famlies but senior citizens and the countless man / women relationships as well. Currently non-custodial fathers and mothers are given certain rights because of their lack of marriage status, will those now be unconsitutional. Senior citizen join together in legal contacts that are similar to marriage, will those now be uncomstitutional.
Posted by: Nate | July 10, 2006 at 06:57 PM
I say, let them be.
Life's too short to make people unhappy.
Posted by: Colin | July 21, 2006 at 10:35 AM
I am representing the producers of a very powerful documentary (God & Gays; Bridging the Gap) .
The documentary premiered at Cinequest Film Festival to a full house.
We had more publicity than any other Film, 4 radio interviews, and NBC television coverage.
The documentary is powerful, controversial, and very compelling.
There is lots of synergy and I would like the opportunity to discuss adding our link to your site www.godandgaysthemovie.com
Regards;
William Grossman
925-838-5816
I have enclosed Kim and Luane's interview by the San Jose Mercury News
Sexuality and salvation
GAYS WHO WORSHIP GOD REVEAL STRUGGLES IN DOCUMENTARY
By Bruce Newman
Mercury News
It makes sense that a festival that's as committed to grass-roots filmmaking as Cinequest would stick pretty close to the basic elements, so the San Jose festival opens tonight with fire (``Thank You for Smoking'' at the California Theatre at 7 p.m.), and closes March 12 with Deepa Mehta's ``Water.''
In between, there will be an abundance of earthy films, and even a few long-winded ones. But one of the high points of the festival's 16th year will be a collision between heaven and hell at the screenings of ``God and Gays: Bridging the Gap,'' a documentary directed by Luane Beck and produced by Kim Clark. (``God and Gays'' screens at the Camera 12 at 7:15 p.m. Monday, and at 9:30 p.m. March 10.)
The film is an eye-opening look at the struggle many Christians -- particularly those from conservative denominations -- face as they come to terms with their homosexuality. Groucho Marx famously remarked, ``I refuse to join any club that would have me as a member,'' but in ``God and Gays,'' almost everyone is trying to join two clubs, each of which categorically rejects the other. One woman speaks of being ``between both worlds and part of neither.''
Beck and Clark both come from conservative Christian backgrounds, and while Beck maintains ``Jesus brought me out,'' Clark's odyssey from church to church looking for acceptance led her to contemplate suicide. It was only after the women attended an event called Soulforce -- run by the Rev. Mel White, a gay minister and author who used to ghostwrite books for the Rev. Jerry Falwell -- that they learned suicide is a plague among gay Christians. ``I'm in this world, and I didn't realize how significant the problem is,'' Beck says.
``It's much more prevalent than we realized,'' Clark says. ``They feel as if they're going to go to hell, that the world would be better off without them because they're these horrible sinners. That was my thing. I felt like an orphan. Christians don't want me around because I'm gay, and gay people didn't want me around because I like to pray.''
White talks in the film about feeling like a sinner until he was 45 because he was attracted to other men, and mentions a young man who committed suicide because he couldn't reconcile being gay with the teachings of his church, which declared homosexuality an abomination. His suicide note said, ``I don't know how else to fix this.''
Just as the Bible once was used to justify the separation of the races in this country, it is now often used to support the belief that homosexuality is a sin. But the film claims that ``homosexuality'' was never mentioned in Scripture until a new translation of the Bible introduced the word in 1946.
``God and Gays'' resists the temptation to turn the subject into a high-volume debate, and though there is a brief interview with Alan Chambers of Exodus -- a conservative Christian group that attempts to convert homosexuals through prayer to become ``ex-gays'' -- the movie makes little attempt to show an opposing point of view. ``Their voice is loud and clear in the culture,'' Clark says, ``and they're trying to get it written into the Constitution. What we don't know about is what's going on with a lot of people caught in the middle of this crossfire. Those people need a voice.''
They may find it in the Rev. Deborah Johnson of Inner Light Ministries in Soquel, whose common-sense affirmations of her life as a lesbian and a member of the clergy are the spine of the film. Johnson performed a marriage ceremony for Beck and Clark at the omni-faith church that they attend.
The film covers a wide range of experiences. There is a young woman of devout faith who discusses her feelings of attraction to other women but who refuses to act upon them because she believes it would be a sin. And there is Mary Lou Wallner, who tells the story of her own rejection of her daughter's attempt to come out, which caused them to stop speaking -- forever.
``There was no reconciliation,'' says Wallner, who now runs a group called TEACH (The Effects And Consequences of Homophobia). ``The next phone call I got was saying that she was dead.'' She admits that when her daughter first told her she was gay, ``I wished she were dead. I would rather she be dead than gay. That's how deeply ingrained it was in me how sinful it was.''
On March 11, Clark and Beck will run a conference on the subject at the Campbell Congregational Church. ``I didn't want people to just walk away from the documentary and freak out,'' Clark says. ``One of the points we wanted to make in the film is, maybe people turned their backs on you, but God never did. He's always been there.''
`God and Gays: Bridging the Gap'
Director: Luane Beck
Producer: Kim Clark
Posted by: William Grossman | November 29, 2006 at 07:56 PM
i think its there choice and its not harming any of us so why not let them be happy??? they're not trying to get you "like them" they just want to be happy so let them be.
Posted by: krystal | June 04, 2007 at 09:40 AM