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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. Virginians did better than most have done in opposing such amendments.
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. 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: It's hard to tell who spent the most on the marriage amendment campaign.
And on the local level ... 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? (Jim Heilman, November 17, 2006)
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