Support Sinks for California Gay Marriage Ban

An LGBT campus group here in the rural antebellum capital of Georgia sponsored a “Guess the straight person” event last night. The student audience was uncharacteristically large and boisterous for a midweek event. They asked questions of the young panelists in order to determine which was the heterosexual.

One of the questions: “who are you going to vote for in this election?” Seven of eight said Obama. That same demographic is credited with the voter swing against California’s Proposition 8:

Backers of a referendum to ban same-sex marriage in California are winning the fundraising race, but analysts and public polls suggest that voter sentiment appears to be turning against them.

The main backer of Proposition 8, which would amend California’s constitution by defining marriage as a union “between a man and a woman,” has raised close to $18 million, said campaign manager Frank Schubert. By comparison, the main group opposing the ban has raised just over $14 million, said Geoff Kors, spokesman for the No on 8 campaign.

But according to a Field Poll released Sept. 18, 38 percent of likely voters backed the initiative, while 55 percent opposed it. Polls released shortly after the California Supreme Court ruled in May that same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry found that voters were nearly equally divided on the issue at that point, polls showed.

Have Proposition 8 advocates resorted to trickery? Posing as a “liberal Democrat” in the L.A. Times, David Blankenhorn endorsed a California initiative to ban gay marriage. Salon questions his liberal bona-fides, observing that his right-wing funders must be pleased:

There is nothing intrinsically wrong with Blankenhorn taking millions of dollars for IAV and $317,225 annually for himself and his wife from ultra-conservative Republicans. But it certainly tends to undermine the notion that he’s a “liberal Democrat” who also happens to oppose marriage by same-sex couples. What sort of liberal Democrat builds his political forum and his personal fortune on the bedrock of ultra-conservative Republican money?

* Colbert last night, included here just for fun!