The next generation will be, hear me...

The passage of Proposition 8 in California, banning gay marriage, was the one big negative on an otherwise very positive election night. Immediately, people started with the blame game. It was the Mormon Church--they bankrolled Prop 8! My target of choice was (and is) that gutless, lying coward--Governor Schwarzenegger. Dan Savage, in particular, shot off an incredibly ill-conceived rant. Who did he blame? Those damn "black male homophobes." This wasn't the first time this charge had been made--even before the election, Savage and Andrew Sullivan were fretting about homophobia in the black community as a hurdle to marriage equality.

As always, let's look at the evidence. Looking over the exit polls, we see one group conspicuously absent: black male homophobes. The exit polls were not able to survey enough black men to be able to give us any representative data about how they voted on Prop. 8. There is no way that such a small group could have made a serious difference in the outcome. In fact, comparing the total black vote to the subsample of black women, it seems likely that black men as a group were more amenable to gay marriage than were black women.

So much for Dan Savage's "black male homophobes."

So why did such a horrible, discriminatory initiative pass in super-liberal California? The same California which supported Obama and rejected parental notifications for abortion?
We could find any number of constituencies amongst whom a minor improvement would have preserved marriage equality. I would switch the question around: Why was it so close?
Every age category above thirty supported a ban on gay marriage. Approximately 55% of Californians between the ages of 30 to 64 supported a ban on gay marriage. Among senior citizens, the vote was 60% for Prop 8. How could any initiative fail when it holds the overwhelming support of the state's 30-somethings, middle aged and old folks? (And no, it wasn't just old black grandmas, either.)

The fact that the initiative was still too close to call on election night was a fucking miracle, and the miracle was this: Among younger voters, gay marriage was supported overwhelmingly. Over 60% of 18-29 year old voters opposed Proposition 8. And they turned out in large enough numbers to keep the election close.

So what of the age gap among people of color? We don't have large enough samples to look at the age gap amongst black, Asian, or "other race" Californians. (And, at any rate, Asian-Americans supported gay marriage outright) We can look at Latinos, amongst whom 59% of the 18-29 year olds voted against Prop. 8--roughly identical to the 18-29 year old vote at large.
Amongst whites, we see a similar age gap. The only age group among whites to vote for marriage equality were 18-29 year olds. Whites ages 30-65 were split evenly, with older whites supporting Prop. 8 by 20 percent. The only reason the headline white vote shows opposition to 8 is because an incredible 67% of young whites voted against the ban. I would expect to see a similar pattern with Asian Americans, who polled a similar slight total opposition to the ban.

So the young folks, across racial categories, supported gay marriage. Older folks, across races, were split on or hostile to gay marriage. Again, how anyone could expect that a proposition supported by every group over 30 would fail is beyond me. Of course it passed. But it's a testimony to just how huge the generation gap is that we still held it close.