Wrong Lessons Learned from Prop 8?

A new report on the reasons California's anti-gay 2008 ballot initiative Proposition 8 succeeded at the ballot box says that many of the things we think we know about why the measure succeeded are wrong.

An Aug. 3 article at Pam's House Blend reports that an analysis of the ballot initiative and its outcome has been completed by Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Mentoring Project. The report, which runs to more than 500 pages, was released that same day. Among its findings: those who voted to strip existing marriage rights from gay and lesbian families may have acted out of fear and prejudice--but not out of "hate." Also among its findings, however, is an affirmation of one big part of the Prop 8 mythos: that the money sent to the anti-family side of the issue from Mormons around the country had a substantial impact on the outcome.

"This one is true," the report acknowledges. "According to Schubert Flint, the lead consulting firm for Yes on 8, the Mormons raised $22 million from July through September with 40% of the money or more coming from members of the Church of Latter-day Saints."

A web site devoted to the study features video commentary with report author David Fleischer.

"If we know our history, we don't have to repeat it," says Fleischer in the video. "The biggest part of this report is data and data-driven findings, and that is important because much of what people think they know about Prop. 8 is a myth. If you remember back to after the election, people blamed African Americas, and it's true that we lost the African American vote, but we started out behind with them, we ended up behind with them.

"What's more relevant are the people who moved away from us during the campaign," adds Fleischer. "And the key group that moved away from us was parents. And once parents moved away from us, we didn't have a way to win."

"The other myth is that this election was so close that it'll be easy to go back to the ballot in the future and reverse the result," Fleischer goes on to say. However, Fleischer notes, more than 400,000 voters who had intended to vote to rescind the then-existing right of gay and lesbian families to marry marked their ballots the wrong way out of confusion. "And although here was wrong-way voting in both directions," Fleischer continues, "No on 8 was the big beneficiary. And that means in a future election we start out a million votes behind."

Fleischer says that the report includes reams of fresh data about voters, the ads that swayed them, and the funding that paid for those ads. The report includes brief summaries and recommendations about what went wrong, what the GLBT side did well, and how to move toward greater family parity.

"The data make it clear why we lost," Fleischer says. "In the final six weeks leading up to Election Day, more than five percent of the voters changes their minds and decided to oppose same sex marriage.... that's more than six hundred eighty-seven thousand voters." More than half a million of those Fleischer says, were "parents with kids under 18 living at home." Notes Fleischer, "It shouldn't surprise us. If you look at what the opposition was doing, they were appealing to and exploiting anti-gay prejudice in their TV ads that were very clearly targeted at parents."

The ads in question essentially told voters that unless gay and lesbian families were deprived of their marriage rights, the children of heterosexual parents would be inculcated into accepting gay sexuality in the public schools starting at young ages. In one commercial, titled "Princes," a young girl arrives home with a copy of the book King and King, a fairy tale in which two men marry, and announces that she was taught in class that she could marry a princess. In effect, straight parents were told that their children would be turned gay if legal family parity were allowed to continue.

State education officials promptly denounced the ads and declared that the message they were promoting was untrue, but the damage had already been done, and the pro-marriage parity side was slow in countering the anti-gay message.

"Voters were exposed to those TV ads for two weeks before we directly responded in our own ads," notes Fleischer. "And when we did, we were able to pull back some of the people who had moved away from us, but what we did was too little, too late."

The Silver Lining

On the other hand, "the No on 8 campaign did some incredibly important things right," including record-breaking fundraising and mobilization of volunteers. "If we use the time between campaigns to gain insight into what it's going to take so that parents who start out on our side stay with us and don't panic and stay with us, then we're going to be in a much stronger position to compete and win."

The report's summaries show that the "message discipline" on the anti-gay side included "ads were clear, direct, and repetitive," whereas a late change in pro-marriage leadership resulted in "ads very different from those created earlier." Moreover, the pro-family parity side shied away from clear, direct words like "gay," and failed to show gay families in their commercials. "Results included message tentativeness, gay-avoidance in the later No on 8 ads, and a "de-gayed" campaign in general," the summary notes.

Among the report's "Top Ten Recommendations" is the observation that it is crucial to "Counter Anti-Gay Prejudice." "We must develop effective arguments to keep voters from being misled by false and defamatory allegations of harm to children historically used to instill fear in voters," the report states. "In Prop 8, our base of supporters shrank in the final six weeks when the ads exploiting prejudice went on the air."

Talking honestly with the public was also identified as a key recommendation. "In three different realms, No on 8 demonstrated the power of honesty," the report observes. "Honesty with our supporters was motivational: they donated in massive numbers when No on 8 honestly shared the bad news that we were in danger of losing. Avoidance of the most direct, honest response cost us a key slice of the electorate that started out with us: parents fell for the anti-gay 'Princes' argument when we waited too long to reply with the truth." Moreover, "Being less than fully honest with ourselves affected part of the No on 8 polling; it tested messages in a way that yielded misleading answers."

The report suggested that valuable lessons be learned, and remembered, not only from families' defeat in California but elsewhere as well, such as in Maine, where, a year after Prop 8, a law that would have extended marriage parity was rescinded at the ballot box in before it could take effect. "From Maine, California can learn at least three lessons," the report says. "First, although pro-LGBT forces in Maine raised and spent 50% more money than anti-gay forces, their experience showed that money alone can't solve the problem with 'Princes' and its appeal to anti-gay prejudice.

"Second, that the strategy of avoidance-the idea that de-gaying the pro-LGBT campaign can shield voters from the reality that the election is primarily about LGBT people-doesn't work no matter what form it takes. Third, when polling shows we're ahead, don't believe it. It's too easy for a poll to underestimate the prejudice against us."

The report's recommendations also urged ongoing and unflagging action to reach out with education, team-building efforts, and critical self-assessment on the part of LGBT equality advocates. Some of those measures were already being put into practice, according to pro-marriage parity group Let California Ring, reported Pam's House Blend. Let California Ring informed Pam's House Blend that they were canvassing across the state, working closely with faith organizations, and investigating the impact of false claims that marriage equality endangers children--as well as how to defuse the power of such falsehoods.

The web site notes that residents of the Los Angeles are may attend an appearance by Fleischer, who is scheduled to appear for two hours at The Village @ the LA Gay & Lesbian Center on Tuesday, Aug. 10, from 7:00-9:00 p.m.