Why California's initiative to ban same sex marriage will probably pass

First off, I'm not a proponent of the initiative to ban same sex marriage that is going on in California. No, actually I'm a political scientist who studies political phenomena from the perspective of someone who really understands the statistical impact of movements.

Now, there's an initiative that has emerged since the court decision to allow same sex marriages. As expected, a bunch of people who don't want gay marriage to exist in their paradigm of the world have emerged and reacted in a politically expedient way to curtail activity with which they disagree.

Last time around, they were successful. This time, however, we keep hearing chatter from the pro same sex marriage crowd that Californians are now on their side. I have bad news for them. That's not going to be the case when it comes to the election.

You see, California is one of those weird states where the people who are issue savvy on the pro side tend to erroneously believe that the rest of the state follows in their footsteps. What they don't realize, or just don't ever want to face up to, is that a large segment of California is very much conservative in nature. They might actually vote moderately democrat, but in reality the core of the state is a conservative state. Yes, I know people don't like to hear this, and some will vehemently deny this, because it doesn't fit their personal perspective of what makes their world happy, but that's pretty much the way this state is. It comes from having a lot of wealthy people in this state. They may not register as Republicans, but they do think as conservatives, and until this grass roots population of people realizes this, THAT is the base of people with whom they must identify and convince of anything.

It's not hard to convince a bunch of people who already agree with you about something you want to see happen. But when it comes to elections, the persuasive element requires knowing the target audience, and if you only target the people who are already on your side, you have to make sure you're going to have more of your people show up than their people. I don't perceive that happening because those who are advocates for same sex marriage have already made a massive blunder by reporting that Californians ALREADY support same sex marriage, meaning that the incentive for anti-same sex marriage voters to turn out his higher than those who already think the election is going to be won in their favor. It's Mancur Olson's free rider problem all over again, and it's amazing how people never seem to figure this thing out.

So, what can the pro same sex marriage crowd do to make sure they win this time around? Something they won't. They need to appeal to those who disagree with them and do so with the respect that causes opponents to respond favorably. Instead of trying to play the "you're a bad person for thinking this" card, which way too often happens in this issue, the same sex marriage crowd needs to convince their opponents that their beliefs are respected, and that somehow (how exactly is up to them, as I am not their spokesperson) a same sex marriage paradigm is beneficial to all. If you try to convince people something like "it shouldn't affect you, so vote this way", they're going to default to specific Biblical readings that their particular Church leader has projected as anti-homosexual rhetoric.

Unfortunately, I've seen the grass roots crowd and their rhetoric in this area. For some bizarre reason, they actually think they'll succeed by shaming their opponents. That never works. It just charges the counter base, and you end up with yet another lost election initiative where people wonder why things didn't work out as they were expected.

Stumble It!

Both dem candidates are going out of their way to lose my vote...religion this time

One of the things I've generally liked about the Democrats is that they don't make a huge focus on religion, like the conservative party does non stop. It's one of the reasons the Republicans finally pissed me off. I don't want to hear about Jesus anymore during an election. I really don't. I'll hear about him if I decide to go to Church, but I want him out of my politics.

Now, it appears that both Democrats aren't satisfied with the fact that Americans have distanced themselves away from Republicans. They want to erase the lines between Democrats and Republicans by focusing on religion. See here. Well, I'll make you a deal, Democrats. If you want to bring religion back to the party, I'll vote Republican because honestly, they do it a lot better than you ever can.

Stumble It!

God's Debris by Scott Adams

Most of us know Scott Adams from his Dilbert fame. However, I read this book, God's Debris, because my friend Jason had recommended The Religion Wars, which is actually the sequel to God's Debris, so I went out and bought the first book and read it first.

First off, it's somewhat sophomoric and written in a style I've come to recognize as "The Celestine Prophecy" style, which is a genre of writing grand ideas within the confines of a very simple story that is actually irrelevant to the bigger issues being discussed. Some examples of this style are: The Celestine Prophecy (which is kind of obvious from my theoretic name) by James Redfield, Number of the Beast by Robert Heinlein, and The DaVinci Code by Dan Brown. I'm assuming The Secret is similar, although I have not yet had the chance to read that one yet. So I may be wrong on that assumption. What makes this style unique (at least to me) is that the story is generic, but the actual text consists of a lot of people talking out complex, important issues that drive the general idea of what the author is trying to convey as his or her message.

Well, God's Debris is like that. It involves a deliveryman who brings a package to an old man who then begins to explain to the deliveryman the secrets of god and god's place in the universe. Rejecting gravity and Newtonian physics, the old man explains that everything in the universe exists more like Schrodinger's Cat, popping in and out of existence, causing movements when two items pop into each other's similar space, and that because God is omnipotent and omnipresent, he therefore has no free will because even God is preordained to achieve exactly a given future. However, the one thing God CAN do that is free will is to destroy himself, which he did. So the rest of the existence of the universe is us (being God's debris) building ourselves back to a coordinated set of networks so that we can reinvent God in his original image.

It's a little more detailed than that, but it was an interesting read. A few decades ago, I might have been blown away by the premise, but I found myself mildly amused instead. I don't know if that should make me feel good or concerned. I'd ask God, but he conveniently blew himself up, so I have to wait until we reconstruct the Internets so I can ask him.

Stumble It!

Sanctimonious bumper stickers piss me off

This was on the back of a car that cut me off on the road yesterday. If we look at it as a simple artifact, it is from a religious organization that seems to be indicating that in order to have a marriage, you have to have a man and a woman. So, is this a bumper sticker praising marriage? No, obviously it is not. It is a reaction to another bumper sticker that states Marriage = (heart) (heart), meaning marriage equals love between two people.

What drives me nuts is that this is such blatant intolerance towards other people, and someone feels it is so important what other people do in their own lives that they have to project it out to the rest of the local community.


Countdown: 363 days

Stumble It!