Two conflicting reports. Patrick Lewis, a former student of mine who now practices in Ohio, writes:
I disagree that Issue 1 [the anti-same-sex marriage measure] was decisive for Bush. Indeed, locally, one of the big stories was how the black vote was split — they voted for Kerry and against Issue 1. Indeed, many Catholic voters here apparently did the same thing (around here, Catholic voters tend to be unionized workers).
Issue 1 was promoted in Ohio by Republican elected officials (most notably Ken Blackwell, who is the Sec[retary] of State . . .), but it’s not altogether clear that Issue 1 actually had the effect of bringing Bush supporters to the polls. The gay marriage issue in general may have fired them up; but I’m sure it fired up religious conservatives all over the country, and was unrelated to Issue 1 in Ohio specifically. We’re going to have to wait for more polls and exit surveys to come out and be analyzed to say for sure, but I would have to say that the war on terror, Iraq, and the economy were the 3 driving issues.
On the other hand, Prof. Bill Nancarrow at Curry College in Massachusetts — not an Ohioan, but then again neither am I — writes:
I told my classes . . . that as far as the electoral college goes, at least (probably less so the popular vote), you have four people to thank/blame for Ohio-the four majority justices of the Mass SJC in Goodridge. While my research on the politicization of legal issues is from the early 20th century (in Ohio, even), as soon as I saw the Goodridge case I thought “backlash.” Yes, these things are difficult to gauge, but when I saw the overwhelming support for the amendment banning same-sex marriage in Ohio yesterday, I could have called the state for Bush. I told all my gay friends who were cheering over Goodridge to be careful what they wished for. The justices were way out in front of “the people” on this, and now they have 11 states with constitutional amendments prohibiting the very measure they (and I) supported. The SJC, at least for the foreseeable future, set their cause back, rather than advancing it. Moreover, I believe the “Goodridge effect” likely influenced the outcome of the election.
So there you have it. The votes from Ohio still seem to be running in favor of the “yes, Goodridge likely did influence the Ohio vote and help Bush” position (see the related post noted below), but I can’t say I’ve got a statistically valid sample here . . . .
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