Are Blacks and Latinos Responsible for the Passage of Proposition 8? Analyzing Voter Attitudes on California’s Proposal to Ban Same-Sex Marriage in 2008
Restricted accessResearch articleFirst published online December, 2010
Are Blacks and Latinos Responsible for the Passage of Proposition 8? Analyzing Voter Attitudes on California’s Proposal to Ban Same-Sex Marriage in 2008
On November 4, 2008, the majority of California’s electorate supported a ban on same-sex marriage. Anecdotal evidence attributes its passage to increased turnout among black and Latino voters. This article determines whether this was so; it also examines whether blacks and Latinos were more likely than whites to oppose same-sex marriage, even when accounting for religiosity and political attitudes. Had black and Latino turnout remained at the same level as in the 2004 presidential election, Proposition 8 would still have passed. Moreover, blacks were more likely to favor a ban on same-sex marriage when compared to whites.
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