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The “31 out of 31 states” talking point, deconstructed
May 18, 2012
Community/Meta Marriage equality
By Jacob Combs
Since President Obama’s marriage announcement last week, there’s been a lot of great journalism on the effect of his new position and what it means for the President’s relationship with his key constituencies. In particular, some really thoughtful pieces have been written on the effect Obama’s decision has had opening up a dialogue in the African-American community not only on marriage, but on broader issues of LGBT equality and the shift in support amongst the community on marriage since the ABC interview.
With all of this press, though, as well as yet more polling on the growth of support for marriage equality, some ink has been spilled on the difficulty of reconciling such support with continued losses for the marriage movement at the ballot, as evidenced by last week’s passage of Amendment One in North Carolina.
Writing yesterday on the Equality Matters blog, researcher Carlos Maza deconstructs the “31 out of 31 states” talking point, pointing out that while it is nominally factual and sometimes quoted even by observers outside of the usual anti-gay circles, it is in the end an incomplete and even misleading way of looking at support for marriage equality.
Maza’s first point is perhaps the most persuasive in its simplicity: pointing to the passage of marriage bans in 31 states while leaving out the fact that the overwhelming majority of those bans were passed 8 years ago obfuscates the way that public support has grown tremendously in the intervening years. According to Greg Lewis, of Georgia State University, who has looked in detail at the data behind marriage bans, support for marriage equality has risen a full 16 percentage points since 2004, when 17 states passed constitutional amendments banning marriage equality. Another 27 states passed bans in 2006, along with three more in 2008, when public opinion was a good eight percentage points behind where it is now.
What that means, in essence, is that the 31 state statistic is mostly a good barometer of public opinion on marriage equality in the middle of the 2000s. Only four of those 31 states passed their bans in the last five years, as the rate of increase in support for marriage equality has dramatically accelerated. In a now infamously leaked memo, former Bush pollster Jan van Lohuizen found that support for marriage rose at a rate of about one percent per year before 2009, but has grown by five percent per year since then.
Secondly, Maza argues, constitutional amendments against marriage equality have targeted anti-gay states in which they are most likely to be passed. Data compiled by Greg Lewis demonstrates that 23 of the 29 states with the least support for marriage have passed marriage bans, whereas 18 of the 20 states with the highest support for marriage equality recognize legal rights for gay and lesbian couples.
The success of marriage amendments in these predominantly anti-gay states creates a talking point that obscures the fact that marriage equality gains are not exclusively made by popular vote alone. For instance, while it is true that California passed a marriage ban in 2008 when it went to a vote of the people, the California legislature (which was, of course, duly elected by a similar vote of the people) passed marriage equality not once, but twice. (Both times, it was vetoed by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.) In the pro-”31 states” camp’s messaging, that makes California a state where the people stood up and defended traditional marriage, but that’s hardly the full story.
California’s Proposition 8 is also an excellent demonstration of Maza’s final strike against the 31 states meme: ballot amendments provide a unique opportunity for the deliberate dissemination of anti-gay misinformation. To demonstrate this point, Maza cites the following analysis from the Oregon Law Review (Vol. 87, 1025, 2008):
One can readily conclude that lawmaking by initiative, the manifestation of unchecked majority will, carries a high risk of producing bad laws. The “bad law” risk posed by the initiative is not simply that of generic poor policy. The absence of the deliberative process can leave the voters with profoundly inaccurate information. False information may be an unintended byproduct of the public campaign, or it may be deliberately disseminated for political advantage. Deliberate dissemination of false information can be a particularly potent and harmful strategy to agitate the majority against minority groups. Immune from legislative or executive review, initiative campaigns may rely on appeals to voter prejudice.
So what do we take away from all this? First, we can recognize that the 31 states meme is misleading at worst and thoroughly outdated at best. It’s something that our opponents cling to as they watch the tide of public opinion change, an argument that essentially says, people haven’t really liked gays and marriage equality in the past.
More importantly, though, it demonstrates just how significant it would be to blow up the anti-gay 31 states meme with a win on the state level this year. We have a good shot of getting a popular vote in favor of marriage equality in Maine this year, as well as Washington. With Obama’s newly announced support, Maryland will be in play as well. In Maine, we’ll be running a positive campaign with a ballot question that focuses on giving rights and doesn’t include the formulation of “one man, one woman” marriage that voters often respond to.
Even if we win in only one state in November, (if we assume that ballot measures will take place in Maine, Washington, Maryland and Minnesota), forcing the anti-marriage side to change their tune to “34 out of 35 states” could have a big effect. People may ask, what happened in that one other state? What made that one state different? And then, even though it may only be by a small margin, the balance would begin to shift in favor of full equality.
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26 Comments Leave a Comment
1.
Bob | May 18, 2012 at 9:22 am
http://www.gottavote.org/en/
new site to help get out the vote
2.
Dave in Maine | May 18, 2012 at 9:47 am
Also, the first bans were in 1998. I am sure that the sentiment in those two states, Alaska and Hawaii, are different. It is misleading for them to keep saying 31. It's a different world today in 2012, for sure!
3.
James Sweet | May 18, 2012 at 9:57 am
Yeah, the last two paragraphs.
All these arguments against the "31 out of 31" meme are valid, but each and every single one takes some time to explain and some minimal effort to understand. The naked fact remains that marriage equality has never scored a single ballot box victory in the United States, and until that happens the bad guys will have a very powerful and very easy-to-comprehend talking point.
In the long view, it's not tremendously important even if there's never a ballot box victory… Barring any black swan events that could entirely disrupt the political landscape, there will be a SCOTUS ruling mandating marriage equality across the entire nation long before there is any serious chance of enacting it in states like Texas, Utah, etc. The war will not ultimately be won at the polls, it will be won in the courts.
But in the short and medium terms, there's still a lot of battles to right, and racking up a few ballot box victories would be a really positive thing. It could even potentially accelerate a SCOTUS ruling.
4.
bythesea | May 18, 2012 at 10:42 am
Perhaps so, and if Nate Silver's projection holds true even states like AL and MI will be ready to pass marriage equality by the mid 2020s. Keeping in mind that his projection was based purely on demographic shift and not shift in views among the demographics, that point will probably happen sooner in reality than the projection and, as you say, some sort of court ruling will likely happen before that point anyway that will make winning at the polls unneeded.
5.
Mark | May 18, 2012 at 10:52 am
This study also indicates that North Carolina ranks 39th in support for SSM, once again showing the folly of throwing more than $2M at an essentially unwinnable contest in a year in which we could have used every cent of that amount in states where there actually is a chance of victory, such as Washington (7th) and Maine (13th),
6.
Kyle | May 18, 2012 at 11:21 am
To be sure, any victory on a statewide ballot initiative will be a welcome one. But I can't help feeling that articles such as this one are meant more to blow smoke than anything else. That we were ever even close in NC was a fallacy, yet article after article touted how people changed their minds when they understood just what Amendment One would do. I just wish the coverage and punditry was less "rah-rah" and more truthful. Changing the talking point from "31 out of 31 states" to 34 out of 35 states might have symbolic meaning, but not much more. It gets us no where to delude ourselves into thinking it will do anything more than that.
7.
Sagesse | May 18, 2012 at 11:42 am
@
8.
Glenn I | May 18, 2012 at 11:46 am
In many of these anti-gay fights marriage hasn't been the only casualty – marriage-by-any-other-name has also been banned.
In Arizona a referendum that banned both marriage & marriage-by-any-other-name (including a ban on marriage-like arrangements for heterosexuals) was defeated at the ballot box. A revised ballot measure that restricted the ban only to same sex couples subsequently passed. This was a case of a win, followed by a loss. The win gave some credence to the idea that once hets understood what they were voting on in North Carolina they could bring themselves to vote against Amendment One. That's what happened in Arizona.
In Washington state the attempt to repeal marriage-in-all-but-name was beaten back. That would count as a win. We won one, a full-on popular referendum. No, we didn't get a vote on the word, and it remains to be seen if a new vote will be on the ballot specifically on the word. So, unfortunately, the win remains ambiguous. That does not make it less than a win. And the pro-gay Washington vote needs to be brought up every time there's a discussion of ballot fights over same sex relationships.
Something else is ambiguous and easily made to sound more simple than it is: the polling. Frequently people tell pollsters they are not FOR allowing same sex couples to marry, yet they say they are FOR allowing same sex couples something marriage-like. People who claim to be for something marriage-like often vote for the comprehensive bans, belying their claims (or their understanding). Washington state was, at least, an example of people who claimed to support some sort of legal recognition for same sex couple actually putting their votes where their mouths were.
9.
Seth from Maryland | May 18, 2012 at 11:49 am
group representing 80 former Catholic priests spoke out against the minnesota marriage amendment.
http://minnesota.publicradio.org/display/web/2012…
10.
AnonyGrl | May 18, 2012 at 12:02 pm
How many of the 31 states that ban marriage have subsequently passed civil unions or domestic partnerships? I would think that pointing those out would take a significant chunk out of the total as well.
11.
Adam Bink | May 18, 2012 at 1:32 pm
All good points, particularly on the legislative side.
If one were to consider the times in which a popularly elected legislature (or one house) has sent a pro-equality bill pertaining to marriage to the governor, it would surprise people.
12.
Reformed | May 18, 2012 at 1:59 pm
Thanks for desconstructing this.
13.
Exx-man | May 18, 2012 at 2:30 pm
I don't think the $2M was a bad investment. It resulted in a lot of debate between a lot of people in and out of North Carolina and that is never a bad thing for our side, and never a good thing for the other side. Ignorance cannot survive the light of truth. It was a battle that had to be fought. We may not have won that battle but I believe we won some hearts and minds.
14.
Reformed | May 18, 2012 at 5:11 pm
Except that the 35 state will be the latest one. With polls changing rapidly over the last decade or so, the last one has to be weighted. There has to be a change point. Yup, they will still get milage out of that talking point for sure, but it will be severely weakened. Every "every" statement will have to be qualified with a "but" or an "except". Interesting to me is how they will explain those "activist" voters. I wonder if they have had a meeting to talk about that. As in . . .
"Hey Mags"
"Yes B?"
"How are we going to explain those activist voters?"
15.
Sagesse | May 18, 2012 at 9:34 pm
There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. Very rarely does anyone point out that 'six states plus DC' means that 25% of the population of the US lives in a state that HAS marriage equality. If the Prop 8 decision is upheld, the figure becomes something like 37%.
What sounds more compelling… six states and DC have marriage equality and the sky has not fallen, or 25% of Americans live in states that have marriage equality… AND THE SKY HAS NOT FALLEN.
16.
Reformed | May 19, 2012 at 10:46 pm
For context . . .
Proverbs 6: 16 – 19: These six things doth the Lord hate: yea, seven are an abomination unto him: A proud look, a lying tongue, and hands that shed innocent blood, an heart that deviseth wicked imaginations, feet that be swift in running to mischief, a false witness that speaketh lies, and he that soweth discord among brethren.
What are you sins?
17.
Michael | May 20, 2012 at 4:10 am
It's important to keep pointing out that only 34% of eligible voters voted in NC. That means the anti-gay lobby got 61% of 34% of voters. Doesn't sound so impressive, does it?
18.
Alyson | May 20, 2012 at 7:38 am
Excellent point.
19.
Alyson | May 20, 2012 at 7:39 am
Another excellent point
20.
Alyson | May 20, 2012 at 7:40 am
How many times has that happened?
21.
Alyson | May 20, 2012 at 7:41 am
Thanks! Great quote.
22.
alyson | May 20, 2012 at 7:56 am
Forgive me for not feeling excited by a possible win at the ballot box if it hinges on straight people deciding that the measure harms them as was a big argument in nc.
'oh shit – this doesn't just screw gay people over but unmarried straight people too! Can't vote for that. Let's rewrite it to just effect gay people so we can all breathe easy and high five our success.' pisses me off.
If anything the more wins they rack up 31,32,33… Makes our point about exactly why majorities can't be trusted with minority rights.
And how stupid is the governor of new jersey? He has no grasp on this concept at all. The other day he said 'they don't want to vote as they are afraid they'd lose' daaa. He also said aa would have loved the opportunity to vote on their rights. Does he think they would have won them that way? Ugh !
23.
Robin | May 20, 2012 at 3:16 pm
It is nevertheless a fact that marriage equality has never won a popular vote anywhere in the world in the entirety of recorded history. We need to stop being so naive about how much straight people hate us. To argue that marriage equality's track record of losing popular votes is not as definitive as it appears — that is, to argue that it's not actually that unpopular — implies that the "you can tell it's wrong because it's so unpopular" argument is valid. The point we should be making is that its popularity has no bearing whatsoever on its rightness or wrongness, because one of the fundamental principles of our democracy is that minority rights should not depend on majority vote. In 2000, Alabama held a popular vote on whether to get rid of the long-defunct ban on interracial marriage, and the majority voted no. That's because the majority of voters were racist, and that deserves to be stated unabashedly. Imagine what an insulting concession it would be if anti-racist activists instead tried to argue that voters weren't really as anti-interracial-marriage as they appeared.
24.
grod | May 24, 2012 at 11:05 am
Jacob – you say that "we have a good shot at getting a popular vote in Maine this year" and in another post this date Barry Yeoman is quoting as attributing the outcome of NC amendment #1's outcome as an urban/rural split, the Maine 2009 Question 1 shows that analysis of outcomes may be more complex than this and may inform the way to look at you assumptions about Maine. For example in 2009 pro-equality took only four of seventeen counties of Maine, and in only one by a differential of more than six percent – the size of the overall split in the vote. With respect to a pattern of the 12 largest cities, making up 62% of the population of the state, six cities, comprising 56% of the total population of these cities, voted for equality and six, comprising 44% of those cities' population, voted against equality. Turnout well-exceeded expectations said Maine Secretary of State. Matthew Gagnon analysis http://pinetreepolitics.bangordailynews.com/2009/… is worth reviewing, including his observation of two counties where there is an urban/surban/rural mix voting against equality.
25. Prop 8 Trial Tracker &raq&hellip | June 15, 2012 at 12:31 pm
[...] has lost at the ballot box 32 times, most recently this May in North Carolina. Last month I wrote about an excellent piece by Equality Matters researcher Carlos Maza deconstructing the 32 states [...]
26.
Lymis | June 16, 2012 at 1:23 pm
Not when so many of the bans include banning civil unions as well.
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