My favorite Alabama referendum

[IceSpear]

If 40% voted against, then a majority of Republicans surely voted against. But everyone tells there are no racists in the Republican Party!

[IceSpear]

If 40% voted against, then a majority of Republicans surely voted against. But everyone tells there are no racists in the Republican Party!

Only whites can be racist, amirite? You know, people like me who are left leaning but independent are really turned off by the constant and trite faux outrage over "racism" in this nation. People like you throw that word around like a monkey flinging poo. It's juvenile, unsubstantiated, and has no place in American politics.

Yes, you're so right. People who vote to reaffirm an interracial marriage ban are in no way racist.

[IceSpear]

Nice strawman. It was you who claimed that this result showed the republican party was racist. I can assure you that many democrats probably voted against that referendum.

Are you referring to registered Democrats, or people who actually vote Democrat? Because many "registered Democrats" vote Republican nearly 100% of the time. Just look at Oklahoma for proof of that.

[IceSpear]

Nice strawman. It was you who claimed that this result showed the republican party was racist. I can assure you that many democrats probably voted against that referendum.

Are you referring to registered Democrats, or people who actually vote Democrat? Because many "registered Democrats" vote Republican nearly 100% of the time. Just look at Oklahoma for proof of that.

That's only a fairly recent development. I believe the AL state leg. was D-controlled until 2010, and a lot of that Democratic strength came from Conservatives in the rural, very white Northern part of the state. Probably about 25%~30% of Democrats voted against interracial marriage.

So racists are slowly but surely migrating over to the Republican Party, continuing a trend that has been taking place since the 60s. Sounds like that proves my point.

[IceSpear]

The nation as a whole didn't have majority support for interracial marriage tell the late 90s, so AL wasn't all that far behind everyone else.


http://www.gallup.com/poll/149390/record-high-approve-black-white-marriages.aspx

That's a bit deceptive due to the large African American population in Alabama, which would obviously nearly unanimously back interracial marriage. In 2000, AL was 71% white, 26% black, 3% other. Meaning that in all likelihood, a majority of whites in Alabama voted to uphold the interracial marriage ban. Meanwhile, if you put the vote up in a nearly 100% white state such as Vermont or Maine, it would've passed with much more than 60%.

There's also the question of the veracity of that data to begin with. I highly doubt only 4% of people approved of interracial marriage in 1960.

[IceSpear]

The nation as a whole didn't have majority support for interracial marriage tell the late 90s, so AL wasn't all that far behind everyone else.


http://www.gallup.com/poll/149390/record-high-approve-black-white-marriages.aspx

That's a bit deceptive due to the large African American population in Alabama, which would obviously nearly unanimously back interracial marriage. In 2000, AL was 71% white, 26% black, 3% other. Meaning that in all likelihood, a majority of whites in Alabama voted to uphold the interracial marriage ban. Meanwhile, if you put the vote up in a nearly 100% white state such as Vermont or Maine, it would've passed with much more than 60%.

There's also the question of the veracity of that data to begin with. I highly doubt only 4% of people approved of interracial marriage in 1960.

So you're going to compare a racially polarized state with a fraught racial history (Alabama) to two very homogenous states that are far more liberal than the country as a whole and have/had fewer racial issues than the country as a whole (Maine, Vermont)?

Why do you highly doubt only 4 percent of people approved of interracial marriage in 1960? Were you alive in 1960?

If only 4 percent approved of it in 1960, it wouldn't have been legal in so many states. To suggest it was such a fringe idea that even a majority of African Americans were against it is simply ludicrous.

In fact, the 4% figure is based on a SINGLE Gallup poll. I can't find any other polls to corroborate it. If Gallup was our only data point for the 2012 election, we'd have been waiting for the Romney landslide.