Who funded Amendment 2?
Florida Family Action, INC. $1,059,639
Republican Party of Florida $300,000
Richard Devos $100,000
Florida Baptist Convention $68,000
Focus on the Family $56,000
Stand For Marriage, INC $12,582
WW Gay Mechanical Contractor, INC $10,000
Ray Berryman $10,000
Leadership for Florida's Future $10,000
First Orlando Foundation $10,000
National Marriage Org $10,000
Click here for a complete list of donors
Who Signed The Petition?
Know Thy Neighbor is in the business of making those who have supported discrimination by signing a ballot petition known. KnowThyNeighbor.org believes that citizens who sponsor an amendment to take people's rights should never be allowed to do so under the cover of darkness.
The names and addresses posted here were collected by Florida4Marriage.org as part of the citizens initiative petition process and have been verified by each individual Florida County Supervisor of Elections. They are part of the public record.
Click here to see who signed the petition.
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Amendment 2 Exit Polls - 83% of Republicans Backed Discrimination
Check out the CNN exit poll
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#FLI01p1
Supported the Amendment
83% White Republicans
72% Black men
71% Black women
62% Latino Men
66% Latino Women
61% White men
59% White Women
Opposed the Amendment
53% of 18-29
52% of 18-24
62% of Jewish voters
60% of non-protestant religons
65% No religious affiliation
It's Not Over
"Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up." -- Anne Lamott
2) Fight for expanded protections for our families- Even as the majority voted to add discrimination into the constitution, 77% of Floridians now say they believe the law should provide all legal protections short of marriage to gay couples. It is a maddening contradiction but also a welcome opportunity to pursue more sweeping legal protections at the state and local level. We must work hard to achieve these protections and to defend them from legal threats posed by amendment 2.
3) Reach out to those who opposed Amendment 2 to help us educate and mobilize for it repeal- Nearly three million Florida voters stood with us and opposed adding discrimination to Florida's constitution. We must identify our supporters and engage them in this effort to undo 2.
4) Reach out to those who supported Amendment 2 but can be reached - We must communicate, educate and challenge those who voted to deny our rights. Polling shows us that communication with Black and Hispanic voters and greater engagement of young voters must be a major part of our effort. While we have built strong alliances with civil rights organizations and leaders, we must focus at the grassroots level as well.
5) Continue the ongoing work to end discrimination - Florida remains a state without a statewide non-discrimination law that includes LGBT people. We are the only state with a statute that singles out gay people and bans us from adopting, no matter how qualified we are to parent. And while we celebrated the passage of a statewide safe schools bill last year, we must work to ensure the new law is enforced properly at the local level to address the epidemic of anti-LGBT bullying.
With all that needs to be done in our state, demonstrating our anger at having rights stripped away is a good place to start, but it’s not nearly enough. The passion must translate into a commitment to get engaged and the resolve to stay involved in the work ahead. We have created a website to serve as an information hub for our campaign called "Undo 2".Click here to join the fight.
Sincerely,
Nadine Smith
P.S. The far right announced they will sending people to the rallies. Remember these are non-violent demonstrations against this injustice. Don't let them bait you.
Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this.
Tell-a-friend!
Dear Friends,
It’s been a little more than a week since election night and our anger has not diminished over the devastating losses in Florida, California, Arizona and Arkansas.
Knowing that 3 out of 5 Floridians - our neighbors, co-workers, and perhaps even family members - voted to reduce us to second-class citizenship in our state Constitutions is an injury too deep to be ignored.
A grassroots driven, national day of peaceful protest has been spawned in the past few days with rallies planned for November 15th at City Halls and other locations across the nation. (see sidebar for Florida events)
But as this day of action approaches, let us not forget that anger alone is not enough. If there is going to be true change in Florida, then our passion for justice requires that we get engaged in the work ahead with our legislative session just around the corner.
Together we must:
2) Fight for expanded protections for our families- Even as the majority voted to add discrimination into the constitution, 77% of Floridians now say they believe the law should provide all legal protections short of marriage to gay couples. It is a maddening contradiction but also a welcome opportunity to pursue more sweeping legal protections at the state and local level. We must work hard to achieve these protections and to defend them from legal threats posed by amendment 2.
3) Reach out to those who opposed Amendment 2 to help us educate and mobilize for it repeal- Nearly three million Florida voters stood with us and opposed adding discrimination to Florida's constitution. We must identify our supporters and engage them in this effort to undo 2.
4) Reach out to those who supported Amendment 2 but can be reached - We must communicate, educate and challenge those who voted to deny our rights. Polling shows us that communication with Black and Hispanic voters and greater engagement of young voters must be a major part of our effort. While we have built strong alliances with civil rights organizations and leaders, we must focus at the grassroots level as well.
5) Continue the ongoing work to end discrimination - Florida remains a state without a statewide non-discrimination law that includes LGBT people. We are the only state with a statute that singles out gay people and bans us from adopting, no matter how qualified we are to parent. And while we celebrated the passage of a statewide safe schools bill last year, we must work to ensure the new law is enforced properly at the local level to address the epidemic of anti-LGBT bullying.
With all that needs to be done in our state, demonstrating our anger at having rights stripped away is a good place to start, but it’s not nearly enough. The passion must translate into a commitment to get engaged and the resolve to stay involved in the work ahead. We have created a website to serve as an information hub for our campaign called "Undo 2".Click here to join the fight.
Sincerely,
Nadine Smith
P.S. The far right announced they will sending people to the rallies. Remember these are non-violent demonstrations against this injustice. Don't let them bait you.
Visit the web address below to tell your friends about this.
Tell-a-friend!
From FiveThirtyEight: Prop 8 Myths
Prop 8 Myths
Writes Dan Walters of the Sacramento Bee:
Last week, however, 10 percent of voters were African American while 18 percent were Latino, and applying exit poll data to that extra turnout reveals that the pro-Obama surge among those two groups gave Proposition 8 an extra 500,000-plus votes, slightly more than the measure's margin of victory.Certainly, the No on 8 folks might have done a better job of outreach to California's black and Latino communities. But the notion that Prop 8 passed because of the Obama turnout surge is silly. Exit polls suggest that first-time voters -- the vast majority of whom were driven to turn out by Obama (he won 83 percent [!] of their votes) -- voted against Prop 8 by a 62-38 margin. More experienced voters voted for the measure 56-44, however, providing for its passage.
To put it another way, had Obama not been so popular and had voter turnout been more traditional – meaning the proportion of white voters had been higher – chances are fairly strong that Proposition 8 would have failed.
Now, it's true that if new voters had voted against Prop 8 at the same rates that they voted for Obama, the measure probably would have failed. But that does not mean that the new voters were harmful on balance -- they were helpful on balance. If California's electorate had been the same as it was in 2004, Prop 8 would have passed by a wider margin.
Furthermore, it would be premature to say that new Latino and black voters were responsible for Prop 8's passage. Latinos aged 18-29 (not strictly the same as 'new' voters, but the closest available proxy) voted against Prop 8 by a 59-41 margin. These figures are not available for young black voters, but it would surprise me if their votes weren't fairly close to the 50-50 mark.
At the end of the day, Prop 8's passage was more a generational matter than a racial one. If nobody over the age of 65 had voted, Prop 8 would have failed by a point or two. It appears that the generational splits may be larger within minority communities than among whites, although the data on this is sketchy.
The good news for supporters of marriage equity is that -- and there's no polite way to put this -- the older voters aren't going to be around for all that much longer, and they'll gradually be cycled out and replaced by younger voters who grew up in a more tolerant era. Everyone knew going in that Prop 8 was going to be a photo finish -- California might be just progressive enough and 2008 might be just soon enough for the voters to affirm marriage equity. Or, it might fall just short, which is what happened. But two or four or six or eight years from now, it will get across the finish line.
36.7% of eligible voters voted YES on Amend 2
I read a blog and someone stated that 60+% of Floridians hate gays. This was my response.
"Let's crunch some numbers. The state of Florida has about 18,680,367 people living in it. About 13,287,564 (71.1%) people are elgible to vote (meaning they are of age, not felons, etc.) Out of the eligible voters, 11,247,634 (84.6%) are actually registered to vote. Out of the people who are registered to vote, 8,440,206 (75%) actually voted. Out of the people who actually voted, 7,889,593 (93.5%) voted on Amendment 2. Out of the people who voted on Amendment 2: 4,885,009 (61.9%) voted yes. Do the math: Only 36.7% of the eligible voting population in Florida voted Yes on Amendment 2.
So, NO!!!!; 60+% of Floridians do not hate homosexuals. It's safe to assume that many of the people who voted YES did not understand the Amendment or voted because someone else told them to. It's also safe to say that not all of the people that voted "yes" hate homosexuals. I actually know some people that voted yes and I sincerely believe they voted yes out of fear."
So as you can see, there is hope. Voting only represents those who voted. It does not represent the entire state. Pass it on.
Amanda
Mormons Resigning Despite Strong Heritage, Citing 'Hatred' by LDS Church
Mormons Resigning Despite Strong Heritage, Citing 'Hatred' by LDS Church
by Andrew CallahanWed Nov 12, 2008 at 09:06:59 AM PST
Mormons continued to register their resignations with, and post resignation letters to Signing for Something this week, citing "hatred" and "discrimination" among their chief reasons for quitting the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. These resignations come among the continuing backlash against the Mormon Church's involvement in passing California's Proposition 8 last week to take away the right of civil marriage for gays and lesbians.
Excepts of a few recent letters are posted here, with links to the full letters.
I am a gay man who, after serving a [Mormon] mission to the Netherlands, left the mormon church (although not officially) as they have no place for me. I've always felt that I didn't need to upset my family or make waves by requesting that my name be removed from the records. After all, I didn't recognize the church's authority anymore so what was the point?
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