I'm a bit surprised that this article doesn't make mention of L.A. County's Measure R, which will be on the ballot Nov. 4. It's the most significant transit bill L.A. has seen in generations, and will provide $40 billion for transit projects, the majority of which will be targeted to mass transit. There's a comprehensive 25 year plan behind the bill which will provide tremendous mass transit improvements throughout the most congested region in the country.

Unfortunately, it requires a 2/3 vote and is being opposed by various NIMBY and parochial interests. It's chances of passing are not high. Without this measure, L.A. County transit will face a significant budget shortfall and will have to significantly cut service and raise fares at a time when ridership is at an all time high. This is an ideal time for government at all levels to be creating jobs through infrastructure projects, while at the same time decreasing costs for commuters and helping the environment. It's a great shame that short-sightedness so often drives our politics. I encourage anyone interested in improved transit to vote yes on R and encourage everyone they know in L.A. County to do so as well.

The exit polls seem to disagree with you a bit on Prop 8 (link below):

Vote by Race:

White (63%): 49% - 51%

African-American (10%): 70% - 30%

Latino (18%): 53% - 47%

Asian (6%): 49% - 51%

Other (3%): 51% - 49%

African-Americans made up ~10% of the vote and supported Prop 8 overwhelmingly when compared to other ethnic groups (including Latinos). It certainly would have been nice if white support for the measure were stronger, but if homophobia in the black community were "only" as strong as in Latino communities, it could have certainly changed the results.

Interestingly, black women seem to have been a major factor, whereas women of other ethnic groups were more likely to be against the measure than their male counterparts (see link below). Of course it's just as easy to look at this poll and blame the people who just go to church too frequently. :-)

I think you might have missed Naufal Yusufzai's point. The claim is not that black gays voted for the ban, but that homophobia in the black community is as strong as it is, in part, because black gays are not accepted fully by the larger LGBT community. The result is that without a support network, they are less likely to come out and therefore acceptance within the black community is less likely. If black gays can't find acceptance within either the black or gay communities, then coming out must be tremendously difficult. When family and friends know that one of their own is gay, they will be less likely to hate and fear gays generally. If people afraid to come out, then this route to acceptance is closed.

@Hampstr:

I'm appalled that California allows constitutional amendments by majority referendum generally, for civil rights or otherwise. What possible good could come from making it so easy to change the state constitution? We require a 2/3 vote to pass sales tax increase; that the bar to change our state's constitution is so much lower shows incredibly unbalanced priorities.

I agree it's a bit ridiculous to scapegoat a single group when a measure like this passes by such a close margin. Any number of small demographic changes could have pushed this the other way, and it's terrible that none of them came to pass.

However, it's hard to deny the importance of that 70% figure, especially since blacks did turn out in record numbers. If black turnout had been 5% instead of 10% that would have been nearly 400,000 fewer yes votes.

Weekly church attendance among blacks in the US is about 1/3, for latinos it's 27%. Support for this measure among blacks appears to be high compared to groups that attend church in similar numbers. It's important that the underlying issues are acknowledged by both the black and LGBT communities. Finger pointing isn't useful, but introspection certainly is.

Prop 6 only got 30% of the vote; chances are that came from only the most conservative elements of the state (there doesn't seem to have been any exit polling on the proposition). There's no evidence of LBGT support for this measure, is there? Any evidence of actual LGBT groups supporting it?

I agree with your initial premise though: the Yes on 8 people ran a very effective, if dishonest, campaign. The No on 8 campaign did far too little to combat it.

@dustball:

Why is it that people so often bring up the passage of Prop 2 as if it has anything to do with the passage of Prop 8? Is it so hard to imagine that a person who felt that gay marriage is wrong might also happen to want to improve the execrable conditions under which factory farmed animals are kept? What do these things have to do with one another?

Reminds me of nothing so much as Clay Davis' courtroom appeal in the final season of The Wire. I doubt it will prove as effective, and not just because he quotes Tennyson instead of Aeschylus.

San Francisco is certainly not the least-white major American city. Both New York (1) and Los Angeles (2) have less white populations than SF (3). Even Houston (4) beats it, and I wouldn't be surprised if there were others as well.

Looks likely that SF (3) is the most Asian major city though, so there's that ...

1: http://newyork.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm

2: http://losangeles.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm

3: http://sanfrancisco.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm

4: http://houston.areaconnect.com/statistics.htm

When the Obama IRS, EPA, SEC, (insert boogeyman agency here) starts producing official briefings headlined with quotes from Marx, Stalin, Lenin, Mao, etc. the Right's claim will have comparable credence to the Left's.

Clearly you're not too familiar with either the history of the sport or references to popular literature. Clearly, "Casey at the Bat" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casey_at_the_Bat) is being referenced, though the outcome here will likely be a better one.

Next time you may want to try googling before spouting off such "corrections"; the phrase "at the bat" gets around 3.6 million hits.