http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/topstory/3451194Gay marriage ban crossed political lines, analysts sayBy POLLY ROSS HUGHES and R.G. RATCLIFFE
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle Austin Bureau
AUSTIN - Blacks and Hispanics who traditionally vote Democratic strongly backed the state's gay marriage ban at the ballot box this week, sometimes outpolling Republicans, analysts said Wednesday.
That broad interest across political lines contributed to the highest participation in a constitutional amendment election since 1991, with roughly 18 percent of registered voters turning out for Tuesday's election.
Republican Gov. Rick Perry rallied his evangelical, socially conservative base on the issue, but political analysts said Proposition 2's success doesn't necessarily predict future success for individual politicians.
"I don't see how it can be useful for a party or a candidate because this so transcends all the political parties and the typical categorizations," said Kelly Shackelford, president of the conservative Free Market Foundation, which backed the amendment.
"We didn't even call Republican homes. We called Hispanics, African-Americans and rural Texas voters. That's where the numbers were," he said.
Others agreed, noting that religion and family values resonate in traditionally Democratic precincts with large minority populations.
On the single issue of defining marriage as between a man and a woman, minorities often voted as favorably and sometimes more favorably than higher-income Republican precincts, said political scientist Tim O'Neill at Southwestern University in Georgetown.
"They don't see it as much as a civil rights issue as they see it as a right of traditional marriage issue," he said. "African-Americans are by far the strongest supporters of the Democratic Party, but not on this issue. This is not a Republican/Democratic issue per se."
Statewide the marriage amendment won 76 percent of the vote.
Big approval on the borderAlong the heavily Democratic, Hispanic and economically distressed border with Mexico, it passed by 81 percent in Hidalgo County, 75 percent in Webb County and 86 percent in Jim Hogg County.
Republican and suburban Fort Bend County backed Proposition 2 by 82 percent while Republican and upper-middle class Collin County in North Texas voted 74 percent in its favor.
Dave Welch, executive director of the Houston Area Pastor Council, said churches and pastors statewide made a significant push on the gay marriage issue.
Clergy participated in "marriage protection Sunday" and spoke of the importance of marriage and its biblical roots, he said. Others ran a 30-second television ad featuring the touching hands of a man, woman and baby.
"That message was probably stronger ... in the minority church community than in the Anglo church community," he said. "Many were more active and more visible in coming out on the issue than many were in the suburbs."
Harris County favored the marriage amendment by 72 percent overall, but that proved slightly higher in the inner city black neighborhoods, several analysts noted.
Rice University political scientist Bob Stein said the measure won easily in the Houston area because of black support.
"In black boxes, it was 75 percent to 25 percent in favor of Prop 2," Stein said. "That's explained by heavy black turnout by African-American women who go to church."
Former state Democratic Rep. Glen Maxey of Austin, who led opponents of the amendment statewide, said minority sympathies on the issue were reflected in a Houston poll conducted last August by the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.
'It is religious based'When asked whether lesbians and gays should be protected in the workplace, 64 percent of African-Americans said yes. But, asked whether gay and lesbian couples should be allowed to marry, 62 percent said no.
"Among that community, it's a total reversal. It is totally compartmentalized. It is religious based," Maxey said.
Perry's pollster, Mike Baselice, of Austin, said the governor has realized throughout the campaign that opposition to gay marriage was not limited to Anglo Republicans.
"I don't know how much effort was coming out of the pastors, but I know that Perry's been working on pastors, not just the traditional Baptist and Anglos, but also the African-American community," said Baselice.
The pollster said it is too early to tell how much the Proposition 2 turnout will help Perry.
But with a turnout of 1.7 million voters in favor of the proposition, Baselice said there are potential new Perry primary voters available.
He said that turnout was about 100,000 higher than the number of people who have voted in at least one GOP primary since 1998.
"It adds to the potential arsenal of votes for Perry," Baselice said. "They still have to more thoroughly be identified now that they've voted."
With Tuesday's vote, gay marriage has been decided in Texas in time to fade in the minds of voters before the March primary, so Baselice said the campaign will have to find ways to reinvigorate these voters.
Strategy to win votes"We have to find out what information is going to get them back to the polls," Baselice said. "If it's a single-issue type vote, we've got to figure out how much we want to expend resource-wise to get these people back in March."
Stein said the Proposition 2 election probably did little to change the dynamic of the GOP primary for Perry because he already had the support of solid social conservatives.
"What Perry did with the evangelicals was an organizational effort," Stein said. "Liberals tend to view those people as rabid dogs. They're not. They're sophisticated. They're organized. Church is just another organization."
