Quote:
Originally Posted by LynnieS
Gay leaders blame TV ads, Obama for loss in Maine
By inference, if this is true, then if Barack Obama supports the next move and there are no ads, the next attempt would succeed? Why does this sound like "passing the buck" instead of a realistic examination of the now-failed attempt in order to succeed later? If this is the only lesson learned, then I would not be surprised to hear of later tries failing as well. 
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Which is why, out of academic interest, I'd like to see how another similar referendum in Washington state is going to turn out.
mg1942 highlighted it in the by-now overheated gay marriage thread. The approach is different as it does not directly ask about gay marriage, but rather asks about what rights a civil union is supposed to confer.
Quote:
Originally Posted by SeijiSensei
Trying to interpret the results of off-year elections, especially those in odd-numbered years without a national campaign, is a dicey task in the best of circumstances. Putting my dusty political-science-professor hat back on for the moment, I can think of a number of reasons why the result came out the way it did.
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It's always interesting to read such insight into a given group of people.
The one thing I've always disliked about social debate in the American context is how it almost always ends up polarising an entire community. Almost every issue becomes a zero-sum game. Why can't it be more about "give and take" instead?
When reflecting on the moods and desires of my own countrymen, I often find that, if you probe deep enough, what they say is often not what they actually mean to say, what they actually believe. I find that if you try to engage their concerns, to walk them through their beliefs from their own perspectives, there is usually a good chance that they would be willing to strike some kind of compromise, and hence move the agenda forward.
Taken at face value, it often seems to me that "compromise" is a dirty word in American society.