While opponents of the Marshall-Newman Amendment (the "gay marriage amendment") are still smarting over its passage by a 57% to 43% margin in Virginia, the Commonwealth Coalition - the leader of the amendment's opposition -- is holding a series of town hall meetings around the state to analyze the election day outcome and discuss what happens, or should happen, next.

A healthy crowd attended the session in Charlottesville on Wednesday at the Thomas Jefferson Memorial Church, where Claire Guthrie Gastanaga, leader of the Coalition, and Dyana Mason and Jay Squires of Equality Virginia, presented their findings on the vote and their vision for the future. Their mood was upbeat, and their analysis showed that, while losing the battle, the anti-amendment forces put up a good fight. Some interesting findings from the town hall meeting and elsewhere:

The Coalition met its target for "no" votes.
The target - the number of "no" voters that believed would be needed to defeat the amendment - was 900,000 to 1 million. The election day vote missed the 1 million mark by a mere 300 votes. So why didn't it win? The target assumed a statewide turnout of 42 to 45%, but when E Day rolled around, over 50% of statewide voters showed up. While "no" voters turned out in big numbers, "yes" voters turned out in even bigger numbers.

Virginians did better than most have done in opposing such amendments.
Of the eight states with a marriage amendment on the ballot this year, only Arizona (which defeated the amendment by two percentage points), South Dakota (where it passed 52 to 48) and Colorado (where it passed 56 to 44) had better percentages than Virginia.

In 20 previous state elections with such a measure on the ballot, only Oregon topped Virginia's percentage, and only by a hair there. Among southern states that have addressed the issue in recent years, Virginia did miles better than any other:

  Virginia       57-43
  Arkansas       75-25
  Kentucky       75-25
  Georgia        76-24
  Texas          76-24
  Louisiana      78-22
  South Carolina 79-22
  Tennessee      80-20
  Alabama        81-19
  Mississippi    86-14

Finally, Virginia turned out more "no" votes than any other state has done, except Michigan and Ohio. Even Texas, with almost three times the population of Virginia, could only muster just over half a million votes to oppose its marriage amendment.

Of 11 congressional districts, only two opposed the amendment.
The 3rd District, which stretches from Norfolk to Richmond and is represented by amendment opponent Bobby Scott, eked out a victory for opponents, while the 8th District (northern Virginia suburbs) swamped it by a two-to-one margin. Here's the district breakdown:

 1st  60 - 40
 2nd  57 - 43
 3rd  47 - 53
 4th  65 - 35
 5th  63 - 37
 6th  64 - 36
 7th  57 - 43
 8th  33 - 67
 9th  75 - 25
10th  55 - 45
11th  52 - 48

Some of the common assumptions of who would vote for or against turned out wrong. According to CNN exit polling (not always accurate but generally close) Catholic voters actually voted against the amendment by a 52-48 margin.

African-Americans voted for it, but by a smaller margin (56-44) than whites (58-42)

Democrats (32-68) and independents (47-53) voted against it. Republicans (surprise, surprise!) voted massively for it (85-15).

According to the exit polls, the less voters went to church, the more educated they were, and the more money they had, the more likely they were to vote "no."

An interesting, though somewhat dubious, theory:
Some analysts have suggested that George Allen actually lost his tighter-than-tight race due to the marriage amendment. While counter-intuitive, the theory goes like this: In the waning days of the campaign, the Allen folks pumped a lot of money into radio commercials on inner-city black/gospel stations in Richmond-Tidewater. These ads, of the "Vote for George and the marriage amendment" variety, were meant to gin up the vote of black church-goers, who were believed to be strongly pro-amendment. The "gin up" part worked, and these voters came out for the amendment - but then voted against George Allen (Allen got a measly 8% of the vote in the ten most African-American precincts in the state). If this theory is true, add it to the list of Allen campaign gaffes.

It's hard to tell who spent the most on the marriage amendment campaign.
The leading opponent - the Commonwealth Coalition - spent about one and a half million bucks to defeat it. Amendment proponents were a wide array of groups, churches, and Republican campaigns (including some groups who will never have to report their expenditures), so it is quite difficult to gauge the total amount spent to pass it.

And on the local level ...
Charlottesville produced the largest percentage margin against the amendment of any of the 134 Virginia localities, with a 77% "no" vote.

Albemarle (with a 59% "no" vote) was one of only three Virginia's counties to vote against the amendment. (The other two were Fairfax and Arlington.) And it was one of only ten localities (including cities) that had a higher number of votes against the amendment than it had for Jim Webb. Note to Jerry Falwell: one of the others was Lynchburg City.

What's next?
Equality Virginia sees those million anti-amendment voters as a great building block for the future. It plans to expand its lobbying efforts with the General Assembly as well as expanding its PAC - with the hope that helping defeat anti-gay Assembly members will change the complexion of the House and Senate next year. EV is also establishing an "amendment-watch" committee to monitor and report any situations around the state where those nasty little words in sentences two and three of the amendment are used to deny rights to GLBT - and straight - citizens of the Commonwealth.

(Jim Heilman, November 17, 2006)