Saturday, November 06, 2004

Why Kerry lost the election

well, some of the reasons

Kerry had known for months that values would play a key part in the US election. He supported the war in Iraq, and reported initially voted for the $87 billion to fund the war before voting against it.

Most Americans do not support gay marriage - neither do most New Zealanders and Australians - but Kerry refused to support a ban on gay marriage, even when encouraged to by Bill Clinton during the campaign. Whether gay marriage is morally right or wrong is irrelevant to this vote - more relevant is that most Americans think it is not morally right.

Most Christians - especially the Christian Right - do not support gay marriage, and many did not support the war. But as both Bush and Kerry supported the war, the difference between the two was their stand on gay marriage and abortion, so up went the Christian Right vote as a protest to Kerry, as well as a support for Bush. However many people who voted for Kerry appeared to also oppose gay marriage, as in Michigan and Oregon, the bans on gay unions passed, and Kerry still won.

The abortion issue has been huge ever since the Roe v Wade case that legalised abortion and polarised Americans. Americans are today more polarised than the day the court judgement in Roe v Wade was delivered.

However, I also believe activist judges also played a part in the Bush win. Had gay activists not pressured the courts so much for gay marriage, the vote wouldn't have been as high, as the turnout wouldn't have been as great, particularly in states like Ohio where there was a state referendum to ban gay marriage. Turnout was the highest since 1968. Of the 15 states with the highest evangelical population, all went for Bush compiling a total of 121 electoral votes.

So gay activism has backfired into this election result.

This election was also a big middle finger to the media as well, the majority wanting a Kerry win.

Kerry is a lapsed Catholic, and more Catholic voters voted for Kerry than Bush, depending on what exit polls you read. However of those Catholics who attend church, most voted for Bush. That makes sense.

Beliefnet has put voters into twelve categories, which they call the 12 tribes of American politics Here is the break down. The biggest two groups are the religious left and the religious right.

Gay marriage is history folks, at least in the short term. Perhaps more so in the longer term as more conservative judges are appointed in this presidential term. So gay activists should get over it and move on to something else - values and morals, perhaps.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Sojourners suggested that the US Catholic electorate is polarised into liberal and conservative camps. The conservatives oppose abortion, lesbian/gay rights and physician assisted suicide, while the liberals uphold church teachings about peace, opposition to economic
inequality and solidarity with the oppressed in the Third World.

Sounds rather like here. I know a lot of ChCh Catholics from my days down there that would fit down the lefthand side of the leger, who loath Bernard Moran and the Catholic Right.

Craig