Democracy in America – a Mixed Bag

If you’re not familiar with California geography (and even if you are), go to: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/politics/cal/la-2008election-california-results,0,1293859.htmlstory?view=8&tab=0&fnum=0
You can run the cursor over each county and see the tally of yes and no votes on all the propositions on the California ballot.

To ward off a serious case of the blues, I’m trying to get analytical about the apparent passing of Proposition 8. I have found contemplating the cultural divide in the state of California helpful – if only to remind myself why I live where I do and not in one of the even more beautiful (Yosemite, for example) parts of the state.

Here are the stats on how the Bay Area Counties voted on Prop. 8:

County...................... # yes.....% yes.......# no........% no
Alameda....................67,095.......38.1.....271,436..........61.9
Contra Costa............163,059.......45.1....198,588..........54.9
Marin.........................28,518.......25.3......84,073..........74.7
Napa..........................19,248.......44.9......23,586..........55.1
San Francisco............54,321.......23.5.....177,036..........76.5
San Mateo..................79,541.......37.6.....131,746..........62.4
Santa Clara..............216,630.......44.4.....271,359..........55.6
Solano.......................58,055........56.0......45,558.........44.0
Sonoma.....................65,898........33.9....128,466.........66.1

total yes and no.......852,365................1,331,848
average of yes.............................38.75
average of no................................................................61.24

And here you have the culture war, in starkly graphic form. Two-thirds of the folk who live in the nine Bay Area counties voted to maintain the constitutional right of same-sex couples to marry. And we lost out to the inland counties. Compare San Francisco and Marin Counties on the one hand with Kern County (click on cities – it’s where Bakersfield is) and Modoc (the Northeastern-most county), and Tulare County, the nation’s second-most agricultural country and the county at the opposite pole from San Francisco with the greatest percentage of yes on 8 votes. Madera County, Fresno’s northern neighbor, is not far behind. Madera’s largest city is Madera, the geographical center of the state, with some 50,000 people. Then comes Chowchilla. Population 18,780. That’s 10,682 town folks and 8,098 residents of not one but two Chowchilla prisons for women.

But I’m turning into a bottom feeder here. Let’s lift this back up to the strictly analytical.

Note that the cultural divide extends all the way up the coast, and that rural Humboldt (Eureka) and Mendocino Counties, the largely rural Northern Coastal counties, voted in pretty much the same proportions as the Bay Area. The same goes for Santa Cruz and Monterey Counties, the two coastal counties to the South of the Bay Area.

Santa Barbara is to L.A. what Marin is to San Francisco in terms of wealth (and I leave you to play with the correlation between wealth and education or culture), and the fact that San Francisco is the most gay-friendly county in the state and L.A. is merely 50-50 should surprise no one.

In addition to the fact urban Californians are far more comfortable with the idea the law should not distinguish between same-sex and opposite-sex couples in terms of granting legal rights, many have noted the correlations between literalist religionists (fundamentalist evangelicals, authoritarian Catholics, and Mormons), especially when combined with less formal education on the one hand, and members of non-literalist religions (Quakers, Congregationalists, Unitarians, Reform Jews, for example) and higher formal education on the other hand.

But this is a democracy.

One man (and, in more recent times, no thanks to the historical social conservatives in our midst, one woman, as well), one vote. You don’t get points for being well educated. Nor for knowing the historical division of church and state in the history of the United States.

You go to the polls, you vote your feelings, your hopes, your fears.

The rest of us have to take solace in the fact that things in a democracy can always change. Even get better. Unfortunately, this is a moment that illustrates why somebody once said of democracy that it is not the best form of government, simply better than all the rest. This is kind of what they meant by “not the best form of government.”

It’s a bitter pill to swallow that while the whole country seems full of hope, and maybe we won't torture prisoners any more, and racism took what many believe to be a death blow, and thousands, if not millions, cried tears of joy and relief, in our little corner of the world this wonderful state went red and retrograde in part and old-time religion put the brakes on culture change.

We’ll hear the screech, remember the sparks, and continue to smell the smoke for some time to come, I fear.

Fortunately, gay people have wonderful coping mechanisms. Judy Garland singing “Over the Rainbow,” for example.

In this instance, it’s back of hand to forehead, and the quote from Gone With the Wind.

Remember Scarlett O’Hara?

"Tara. Home. I'll go home, and I'll think of some way to get him back. After all, tomorrow is another day."