Look at the Orange County vote above. Notice how opposition to Proposition 8 - in lavender - is concentrated in South County liberal bastions, especially the Laguna Beach gay enclave and Aliso Viejo, as well as the Irvine area, with the University of California within that territory. Other than that, some of the more economically-challenged parts of the county to the north showed tremendous support for the Yes on 8 side.
Indeed, the city-by-city results show huge traditional majorities in towns like Santa Ana and Westminster (61.82 and 65.74 percent, respectively), which are ethically diverse communities, with a Latino majority in Santa Ana and a large conservative, anti-communist Vietnamese community in Westminster.
On the no side, only Laguna Beach recorded a larger majority, at 68 percent, and only three other cities recorded a bare majority vote in oppostion of the amendment (Costa Mesa, in addition to Irvine and Aliso Viejo, as note above).
What's striking, really, is that Orange County's more traditional working-class and minority communities reflected the larger trends across the state, for exampe, which included 70 percent of black voters supporting the Yes on 8 campaign.
Meanwhile, a huge web-based protest campaign is gearing up for a new round of protests this weekend, and the activists are getting a reputation for in-your face opposition.
At some point, the increasing radicalism of the gay-marriage movement will damage its own cause, and some of the episodes of activists calling black passers-by the "n-word" certainly presage the kind of racist totalitarianism that's inherent in the overwhelming affluent white gay constituency supporting same-sex marriage in California, with radical fringe groups like International ANSWER providing the organizational cells at the grassroots.
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The Democrats have a bit of a problem that may seem minor at the moment but could tear their coalition apart in a few years as they are forced beyond rhetoric into action. Minorities tend to be economically more liberal than whites but culturally more conservative. This has been noted for years.
I may be wrong, but I was always under the impression that there are not many queer blacks. Maybe they figure they have enough to overcome, maybe it's just not in their genes, but what ever the reason, being straight seems to be a strong point for them.
Well, just a point about that. If gays are 10% of the population, and blacks are 30% of the population, then gay blacks are only 3% of the population. So you don't see as many of them. Simple math.
(Plus, since the black community is more conservative on this issue, they more often chose to be in the closet than whites.)
However, black gay activists are working to diffuse racial tension in the gay community as well as educate the black population on this issue. So expect them to become more visible.
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