POLLING: SUPPORT FOR SAME SEX MARRIAGE DECLINING?

[stevenkesslar]

I saw a couple headlines like the one above, claiming that support for same sex marraige is now on the decline, so I figured it was worth looking into. Its now clear that at least two statewide organizations in California - EQCA and the Courage Campaign - plan to go out and talk to voters in areas where opposition to same sex marraige is strong. I am delighted they are doing it, and I plan to spend a lot of time helping. So I figured it was worth knowing in advance whether or not things have somehow changed, and we are about to spend a huge amount of time on a massive wasted effort that will just leave the LGBT community feeling more discouraged.

Before I get into lots of possibly confusing numbers, I'll start by making the points I want to make.

The thing that most annoys me about what a lot of gays and lesbians think right now is that because we were ahead in the polls before the election, we were supposed to have defeated Prop 8, and we only lost because the No on 8 campaign was terribly fucked up. One conclusion this is leading to is that we have to run a very grassroots campaign next time, which makes a huge amount of sense. The other conclusion it is leading to in some quarters is we have to run a much more "in your face" campaign, making gays and lesbians more visible, and possibly using tactics like civil disobedience. Its far from clear to me that any of that makes any sense.

The thing that makes the most sense to me is that the gay and lesbian community now has an opportunity to get very sophisticated about three magic words: polling, backlash, and messaging.

First, here's a lot of results from various polls.

The latest Gallup Poll is being used by the right to suggest that they are winning, and that support for same sex marriage is on the decline. A May 2009 Gallup poll shows that Americans oppose same sex marraige 57 to 40, the strongest level of opposition since 2005, when it was 59/37 against. In 2007, Americans were against same sex marriage 53/46, so the right's claim is that more Americans are actually turning toward a "traditional" definition of marriage.

Even in Ground Zero, California, a new Survey USA poll shows opposition to same sex marraige at 53/45, which is worse than the 52/48 margin we lost by last November. It also shows that by a margin of 56 to 40, Californians "agree with the court's ruling upholding Prop 8."

What all this ignores is that polls change on a dime, and polls change depending on who is running them and what specific words you use. Right wingers who take the above poll results to mean they are wining are stupid. Or, to be polite and smug about it, they are politically unsophisticated.

That's cool, because we did the same thing. Last May, right after the CA Supreme Court legalized gay marriage, the LGBT community made the same mistake. A poll in May 2008, right after the Court's ruling, showed that 51 percent of Californians supported legal same sex marriage, and only 42 percent opposed it, the "first time ever" that a majority supported same sex marriage. The prior poll in 2006 showed Californians opposed to same sex marriage, with 44 percent for and 50 percent against.

Many people ignored the words "FIRST TIME EVER" and decided it was okay to be complacent, because we were going to win anyway. To me, thats like saying that since you don't have to wear a rubber when you kiss, its okay to have anal sex without one. Well, as soon as you change one thing, everything else changes. In the case of No on 8, we were doing great, as long as the Court was on our side and there was no opposition. The first time the right ran an ad positioning the campaign as a handful of activist judges and a gadfly Mayor shoving laws down people's throats (why is it always about shoving something inside a body cavity?) all that wonderful support just disappeared.

Taking a poll as anything other than a snapshot never makes sense. Rasmussen polls showed Obama's approval rating the day he was inaugurated as 69 percent approve, 28 percent disapprove. From that, you could conclude that Obama is going to be the most popular President ever. Except right after the election his approval margin was 52/44, and as of May 28 it is 56/43. Add John McCain or Republicans in Congress, and real issues like bank bailouts and health care, and a lot of that support disappears.

My interpretation of the poll results above, showing that a majority of Americans as well as a majority of Californians now oppose same sex marraige, is that this is as bad as it gets. We just had a stinging slap in the face, and the Court just ruled against what we wanted. The fact that 40 percent of Americans and 45 percent of Californians are solidly for same sex marriage at one of our worst moments shows that we are moving closer and closer to having permanent majority support for gays and lesbians simply being a normal part of society.

In fact, some other polls just taken reach the same conclusion: support for same sex marriage is growing. A CBS News poll in April 2009 asked people which they support most: same sex marriage, civil unions, or no legal recognition. Support for same sex marriage grew from 33 percent in March 2009 to 42 percent in April 2009. That's one month! Opposition to any legal recognition declined from 35 percent in March 2009 to 28 percent in April 2009. As various states embrace gay marriage, the hardcore opposition seems to be breaking apart.

A Field poll in California found the same thing here. In March 2009, 45 percent of Californians supported same sex marriage, 34 percent supported civil unions, and 19 percent opposed any legal recognition. Thats way up from February 2006, when 36 percent supported gay marriage, 33 percent supported civil unions, and 27 percent opposed any legal recognition.

These polls also reinforce the idea that all polls are just snapshots, and events in just one month can change the way people feel dramatically. To me, that reinforces the idea that the real goal should be to build long term, permanent majority support, and the best places to do that are in the states, like California, where we already have the strongest support anyway. Assuming that we are going to ask voters to say "YES" to marriage equality in 2010, starting with somewhere in the ballpark of 45 percent rock hard (oops, there we go again) support is not a bad thing.

The polls also suggest that there is a tipping point, and that as more states embrace gay marraige, opposition will erode and we will pave the way for marriage equality and more importantly TOTAL equality at the national level, which to me is the real prize to be won.

Along the way, we should count on the fact that there will be backlash. That may be what some of these polls are picking up. If there is a 2 percent spike for proponents of discrimination against gays, thats not a big deal. What I found interesting about the Survey USA poll of Californians is that people in my state oppose gay marriage 53/45 (on the day the poll was taken, right after the court said it was okay to think that way), but by a larger margin of 56 to 40 "agree with the court's ruling upholding Prop 8." I am totally reading into these numbers, but they support my gut feeling that having the CA Supreme Court throw out Prop 8 would have been a kiss of death. It would have gotten right back into the argument about activist judges and extremist homos trying to undermine democracy (and of course recruit straight children) that the right used so effectively last Fall. By taking our lumps this week, and keeping the focus on a conversation about how you ensure equality in a democracy, and how you legally support loving relationships and families regardless of who is in love with who, we are taking the high ground that will lead to victory, sooner rather than later.

To me, one particularly optimistic poll result is from a New Jersey poll. This month, 49 percent of New Jersey is for same sex marriage, and 43 percent is against. (That compares to 50 percent opposed and 44 percent for in December 2006). When you break that down another way, 42 percent prefer the idea of same sex marriage, 30 percent prefer civil unions, and 20 percent are against any legal recognition. Here's the really good news: by a 60 to 32 percent margin, people in New Jersey are for adoption of children by same sex couples. When you get beyond the fight over words themselves - "marriage" versus "civil union" - it appears that the basic idea that gays and lesbians should be allowed to have normal relationships and normal families, including with children, is an idea that already may have broad majority support. (There are outliers, like Arkansas, that voted to ban same sex adoption last Fall).

To me, this is part of why marriage equality is worth fighting for, even if you would be very happy with civil unions that provide full federal rights. By fighting for marriage equality, we are fighting for equality period. All the arguments we have to make and hearts we have to move in order to win marriage equality carry over to every other aspect of gay and lesbian life, relating to how we raise families, and where we live and work. Even right wingers are essentially arguing, "We don't want to take their rights away, we just want to protect marriage." To me, the first half of that sentence shows we have already won an incredible victory with the silent majority who more and more sees us as normal, and may no longer support the mean-spirited efforts to eliminate rights that we had to focus on for decades.

As we continue to win, we should count on the fact that there will be a backlash against us, and that we have some control over how powerful it is and what course it takes.

To bring in Obama again, another thing that really annoys me now is all the liberals who spent money and time getting him elected, and now feel he is selling them out. From their perspective, he is as bad as Bush when it comes to a whole bunch of issues, from terrorism to gay marriage rights to not fighting for a single payer health care system. What's really clear to me is that all you have to do is take a list of the biggest hot button issues of the last 25 years, where Democrats got creamed (Dukakis and the ACLU, Clinton and gays in the military, Kerry and Swift Boats), all issues that helped Republicans kick Democrats asses, and that is where you will always find Obama 'hiding" in the center. Sometimes this hurts. My personal holy grail is gun control. I love traveling to Mexico, and it is absolutely clear that we are feeding the drug war not only by consuming Mexican drugs, but by arming Mexican warlords who then go kill Mexicans, including some innocent bystanders, even an occassional American. I don't see how it would hurt hunters in Minnesota to make it hard for the bad guys to get assault weapons in Texas or New Mexico. And it would potentially save thousands of lives. But Obama appears to be committed to observing and learning the lessons from past Democratic defeats, and right now that means he is not going to come on heavy and strong on gun control.

California is reknowned for having a politically looney fringe, and its interesting having moved here in 2002 to be coming to grips with that. (My organizing days, which were grounded in Alinsky methods, started in Chicago, so Obama's methods feel much closer to home for me). There are a bunch of people here who seem to want to do the very thing that guaranteed defeat in 2008 - race into an election that we are not fully prepared for with the smug certainty that somehow, since this is California, we are different and we will win. To me, this includes the idea that we should be as "in your face" as possible, holding hands to block traffic and proclaiming how nice it would be if every girl could just grow up to be married to a lesbian President of the United States.

The best thing about what happened this week in California is that it should serve as a huge reality check that will not be forgotten for a very long time. Earth to California: middle America doesn't like "in your face" politics. Notice how a black man got elected President, with very little public discussion about race (except for Rev. Wright, which hurt Obama) either during or after the election. Get a clue. Maybe escorts have a natural advantage in understanding the politics of this issue, since we have to understand the rules of discretion, but I just don't see how using the "in your face" tactics of identity politics would have helped Obama last year, or could possibly help us next year.

That leads to my final point, which is about messaging. I don't think we fully understand what message we now want to send to middle America, which is also why it makes sense to go door to door and talk to people, and listen.

It is clear that the message of "whether you like it or not" is a horrible one. When the right aired Mayor Newsom saying that last Fall, support for marraige equality plummeted. I am hugely relieved that I don't have to carry the burden of being against democracy into the next election, which is how a "win" would have been portrayed - telling the voters to go get fucked. I hope we figure out a way to communicate that we believe that people are fair, and if given the opportunity to vote without scare tactics, they will vote for the right thing. Obama is a master at that. (Incidentally, every poll I've seen shows that blacks oppose same sex marraige more than whites, and it is entirely due to their religious beliefs, not their ideology. The three things that drove the Yes on 8 vote were being Republican, being conservative, or going to church. Few blacks are conservative Republicans. I think its a blessing that a liberal black man who African Americans listen to and who is good at depolarizing happens to be President when this is likely to come to a head nationally).

My guess is that "be for gay marriage or you're a bigot" won't work either. Dozens of states have now voted against same sex marriage, and those people don't want to see themselves as bigots, or be called bigots. The only state that voted NOT to ban same sex marriage, and then reversed it, was Arizona. I met a lesbian couple from Arizona outside the court a few days ago, and their perception was that they won the first election because the gay/lesbian part of it was soft pedalled. The right came back and won by putting gays and lesbians back in the forefront, once again claiming that the rest of society needed protection from you know who and you know what.

The No on 8 campaign has been broadly and intensely criticized for hiding the faces and voices of gays and lesbians last year. Many people I talk to, maybe most people, feel that if we had just put the stories of gays and lesbians out there, we would have won. I'm not so sure.

I was in Florida last Winter, and I met the gay owner of a men's clothing store. (Okay, I'll admit it, I saw all kinds of tight fitting clothes I just HAD to have). He felt they got creamed last year (not literally) and it was because the election was perceived as a referendum on gay marriage. 62 percent voted NO, consistent with what polling on basic views of same sex marriage by Floridians showed at the time. What I keep wondering is: if every state that has voted on the question has banned same sex marriage, and if California voted 52/48, which is about as close as we have gotten in a real election, why was the No on 8 campaign so bad? And is changing the issue from "gay marriage" to "marraige equality" or "fairness" such a bad thing?

On this one, I don't feel I have a clue what the answer is, other than that if you get beyond the snapshots and look at the long-term trends, there is simply not a majority in America, or California, that supports same sex marriage for sure yet. You could argue that we should not even think about going back to the ballot for a long time. I'm a perpetual optimist, and I'm insatiable, for politics as well as sex, so I'm always ready for more. Its just that -unlike with sex - shoving it in someone's face may not be hot, it may just be hot button.

What messages do people hear think would work?

[MsGuy]

"By fighting for marriage equality, we are fighting for equality period. All the arguments we have to make and hearts we have to move in order to win marriage equality carry over to every other aspect of gay and lesbian life, relating to how we raise families, and where we live and work."

That is as spot on a statement of the importance of the fight for marriage equality as I have ever read.

Have you considered merging this with your other posts on Prop. 8 and rewriting them as an article for one of the gay magazines? You've been saying things here that deserve a wider forum.

[lookin]

Steven, I'd like to add my pat on the back to MSGuy's. You've been writing very thoughtfully on this subject, and got me thinking too. I don't have any message suggestions for you, but I do have a suggestion for where to get some.

Many of my years were spent in marketing and presenting information in a way that changed minds. I think that work is similar to what you have in front of you. One of the things I learned is the need to present a message that resonates with my audience, and not necessarily the message that resonates with me and my friends.

Job one is to determine who my audience is and, to do that, I need a strategy. That seems to have been lacking in the "No on 8" campaign last fall, and it may well be lacking today. But, in my opinion, getting a good strategy is the first thing they need to do. A good strategy will lead you to the best message(s), and the best chance of success. Without a good strategy, the campaign could end up burning a lot of cash and volunteer hours without changing many minds. And the wrong message to the wrong audience could actually end up making things worse.

I'll use an example. Let's say that the new "No on 8" campaign wants to look at a strategy that converts the vote of 50% of church-going black voters from a "Yes on 8" to a "No on 8", and they figure that would be enough votes to swing the next ballot measure. In that case, they get a bunch of church-going black voters into small groups and find out what's on their minds. You can't change opinions unless you first understand them very well. Then you put together some ideas based on what you heard the small groups telling you, and you try out those ideas on other small groups of church-going black voters. You find that some of those ideas resonate and some don't. You also find out that they look to their friends and their church for political information, and not to TV or the internet. You may also learn that they don't usually open their doors to strangers.

A hypothetical example like that might lead you to a strategy of reaching this group in their churches. You might find a black gay couple who are married, or want to be married, to address the congregants. They may tell the congregation that they have the Lord in their hearts and they have each other in their hearts, and they don't want to have to choose between them. This message wouldn't work going door to door, but these voters may not open their doors anyway. This message may also be good for TV, but it won't be very effective in reaching this audience. You may also find that that there isn't any message that resonates with these voters. And that tells you that you need another strategy. At least you'll know in time to do something else.

My small community provides another example. Voters here turn out and are very liberal (Nader got more votes than Bush in 2004). We voted 80% against Prop 8. But I still got a call from a "No on 8" volunteer. I thanked him, told him he had my vote, and let him move on to his next call. There's not much reason to call people in my community. The things that work best here are yard signs and notices at the post office. Even then, there aren't that many more votes to be had.

There are other ideas and strategies to explore, and there are consultants who can help you do it. There are companies who specialize in getting small groups together, finding out what they think, and what ideas could cause them to change their minds. There's advice to be had on which tactics work best for which audiences.

I'm not sure whether you are on the front lines of the new campaign, or in the strategy development part, or both. But I think the work that needs to be happening right now is strategic, and it should come before folks start knocking on doors.

My two cents, anyway, along with thanks and very good wishes.

[lookin]

(Nader got more votes than Bush in 2004)

Make that 2000.

[stevenkesslar]

Thanks for the compliments. Its obviously an issue I care about.

I won't be writing anything, and I won't be at the center of any debate about strategy. If the goal is to reach out to the middle and move people, people in my profession are not the best voices. :-) I'm good at being discreet, and at working behind the scenes. Or you could just say I will cum at you from behind. :-)

But the strategy is emerging, and it is thrilling to me. As my posts should make clear, I keep being pissed off by the many people who think that the No on 8 campaign fucked up, and we (the part of the LGBT community that is politically active) will keep fucking up. We ran a campaign that has lost in every state it has been tried, and we almost won. What's so bad about that? If people somehow think that because one poll on one date guarantees victory, they are basically naive, just like believing another poll on another day guarantees we will always lose. As the first part of this post points out, the long-term trend is that these days about 45 percent of Californians seem to be solid supporters of marriage equality for gays and lesbians. Thats a big improvement from just a few years ago, and I personally feel like all the hard work of the No on 8 staff and volunteers, and all the money we spent, produced at least that much.

I'm frustrated too that it didn't produce victory, and we should learn from the mistakes or shortcomings of the past. The biggest part of that is we were not grassroots enough, partly because we had about 4 months to run a campaign. Now we have over a year, and there seems to be a commitment to do thorough, statewide, deep grassroots organizing, and try to match if not beat the churches on their strongest point. I was part of the first Northern California door-to-door canvass this past weekend, and everything suggests that it is going to be a success. I have never seen as many people so eager to volunteer, and now there is a structure to put people into.

I also think the part about our messages is going to be the hardest part. Almost everyone I know that is gay and lesbian feels that this campaign should be more affirmative about the fact that this is about GAY and LESBIAN marriage. The No on 8 campaign was based on what middle-of-the-road focus groups said, and it does not surprise me that people who support notions like "marriage equality" or "fairness" will not vote for "gay and lesbian marriage which will send the wrong message to kids." I'm not saying that we should run another campaign that feels closeted. But just like coming out of the closet individually, we are going to have to be cautious and thoughtful about how we do this. The good news is that at least based on one day's experience, having a real gay or a real lesbian at your door is not a big turn off to undecided voters, or people who opposed us last time. Whether we can convert people remains to be seen, but the strategy of going to people at their doors, talking to them, and persuading them, is always a good one. That's a big part of why the Yes on 8 folks beat us last time. If we match their game, and their money, we have every reason to think we can win.

Ultimately, I think the right's biggest strength can be turned into their biggest weakness. Their ace in the hole is that they can always go to the voters and scare them, knowing that every time they win. They are good at building armies and messages to do that. The first time we beat them at their own game, I think the facade will crumble. Last time we came close. In the big scheme of things, we don't really have that much farther to go. Not over the rainbow, just over the bridge to the burbs. :-)