Some 31 percent of gay, lesbian, and bisexual (no trans?) voters picked Republicans on Tuesday, representing a decent spike from 19 percent in 2008 and 24 percent in 2006.
(Then again, the sample size is just 110 out of 3,700 people included in cable news’ exit polls, or 3 percent of all voters.)
Says GOProud’s Jimmy LaSalvia: “Gay and lesbian voters are just like other voters in the electorate – many of them are astonished about the growth in government, and the misguided priorities of this administration. These numbers don’t surprise me at all. … The gay left would have you believe that gay conservatives don’t exist. Now we see that almost a third of self-identified gay voters cast ballots for Republican candidates for Congress in this year’s mid-term. This should be a wake-up call for the out-of-touch so-called leadership of Gay, Inc. in Washington, D.C., which has become little more than a subsidiary of the Democrat Party.”
At the very least, the exit polling — even with its flaws — appears to put to bed the ridiculous pre-election theory that gays would abandon everyone on Tuesday out of frustration: “Even with the shift,” notes The Upshot, “gay voters remain among the top five demographic groups that vote Democratic.”
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
TLC
The Democrats should be worried. I don’t see that either party has the LGBT communities best interest in mind. I’m in favor of TAKING our rights…by force if necessary. I’m tired of the catering to the religious right in this country…what ever happend to separation of church and state.
I’m not usually in favor of Vigilante Justice…but we are not being given much for options…
Dou Lobbs
The gay tea bagger trolls on Queerty have been telling us that lack of progress on gay rights has all been the fault of the Democrats. So now we will see how far our cause advances with the Republicans in charge in the House.
Kevin McCarthy
We need everyone in the streets kicking and screaming. It’s worked well so far. Until we show enough anger to upset everyone, we’re not going to make any progress.
Make them mad and they’ll support us!
skzip888
The fact that there is an (openly) Gay right just proves that the queer left, and and their straight-but-not-narrow allies have been doing their job. The Republican party isn’t about to abandon it’s legion of bigoted grandpas just yet.
Cam
@Kevin McCarthy: said..
We need everyone in the streets kicking and screaming. It’s worked well so far. Until we show enough anger to upset everyone, we’re not going to make any progress.
Make them mad and they’ll support us!
_____________________________________
I what you are saying is so sad. You believe that your politicians have no interest in civil rights, but only in how polite and kiss assy a constituency is when they ask for something. Wow…
Just for a refresher, we were told there would be NO DADT vote this year. Well one Protest March and a few sit in’s later and suddenly there is a bill being voted on.
And as another lesson, do you think that the Oil companies, the NRA, the Unions, Wal-Mart, Micro-Soft etc… sit there in their little pretty dresses with ribbons in their hair and say please and thank you? No, they send their hired guns to Washington and Tell their congressmen what they want.
tjr101
@skzip888: Exactly, the GOP doesn’t need the gay vote, never has never will. The GOP values the votes of the religious right and they always win when they use gay issues as red meat to rile up the base. Getting a few extra votes from gays is icing on the cake for the GOP.
Daveny
Because republicans love us….right?!…..FUCK! I blame Democrats on this one, not enough was done. Even so I would never in a million years vote Republican. I’m confused with all of this I knew we had some self-loathing A-holes but I never knew it was this out of hand!
jason
Obama will be a one-term President if he doesn’t get rid of DADT within the next two months. That’s because he will completely lose the support of the GLBT community. His Presidency will be over.
The only gays who will still vote for him are the ones who are tied to leftist notions and don’t mind being bashed by the ones they love a la battered wives syndrome.
SBC19
Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face. Go ahead and vote republican, and when we get another Bush or McCain in office, and they make no bones about having little respect or use for LGBT rights, you’ll only have yourselves to blame.
Paschal
@jason: The last paragraph sums of the mentality of gay Republicans very well.
jason
What’s the point of voting Democrat if they’re not going to deliver even when they have a super-majority in Congress? It’s a wasted vote. You’d be better off voting for an honest moderate Republican than a dishonest sleazy Democrat.
You guys need to wake up. You’re having your strings pulled. The Democrats have been pulling your strings for years. Obama has been pulling your strings since he came into power. Face it, the guy’s a fraud and so are most members of the Democratic Party when it comes to GLBT rights.
You must love being defrauded.
Brutus
“the ridiculous pre-election theory that gays would abandon everyone on Tuesday out of frustration”
Uhh…How many times did Queerty post articles saying, essentially, Don’t Vote?
Brutus
@jason: Even if neither party does anything about LGBT rights, I’m still better off with a Democrat.
MikeE
all this talk of “left” is hysterical!
Americans have absolutely NO idea what true “left” means.
Obama and the democrats are SO centrist it’s not funny. They aren’t ANYWHERE near “liberal” territory, and certainly nothing that could remotely be called “left”.
On the other hand your RepubliKKKans are so rightist, they are about as close to fascism as exists in this day and age.
J. Clarence
@jason: Is that so.
I would wager that gay Americans make up maybe 10% of the electorate, and that’s being really generous with numbers, yet somehow collectively if we choose not to vote him that alone will bring down his re-election bid. Maybe you weren’t ever that good in math in school, but what you are suggesting is statistically impossible.
I’ll give you kudos for inflating the influence of the “gay vote”, but lets stick to reality.
Even it was case that the gay vote can somehow make it or break for Obama, it would be bad for gay-rights to go the other. Look at the other side, Sarah Palin, Newt Gingrich, Sen. “Gays shouldn’t teach in public school” Jim DeMint, etc etc. Do you really think that if we let them get into office that would somehow good for gay-rights? While we haven’t gotten what we want, as fast as we wanted it, gay rights has made more progress in the two years under Obama, Speaker Pelosi, and Reid than they did in all the decades before.
The majority of the Democratic caucus in the House voted to repeal DADT, and the majority of Democrats in the Senate voted to repeal DADT; all Republicans, moderate and conservative, voted against it in the Senate (and I’m sure they did so in the House too). Exactly how are Democrats defrauding gay Americans again? And exactly how would (moderate) Republicans be any better.
Devon
@jason:
Moderate Republicans are extinct. The teabaggers took them out behind the woodshed and capped them in the back of the skull, Ol’ Yeller style.
I’m fucking sick of the Democrats and I’d kill to have a viable left wing alternative, but I’ll continue to vote for them as long as the alternative is ‘Murrica’s Christofascist Taliban.
tjr101
You guys fail to see that Jason has consistently advocated to vote Republican, he is a gay Republican in sheeps clothing.
Baxter
@tjr101: It’s not that the Republican party doesn’t need or want the gay vote. Politicians will take any vote they can get. The problem is that the gays are so firmly attached to the Democratic teat that we probably wouldn’t support Republicans even if they were totally aboard the gay rights train. Republicans have everything to lose and almost nothing to gain by courting gay voters.
Basically, we need to be more like Jews and less like Blacks. Attaching yourself firmly to one party just gets you ignored by both. Swing voters win elections and those are the people that politicians care about.
J. Clarence
@Baxter: “Basically, we need to be more like Jews and less like Blacks. Attaching yourself firmly to one party just gets you ignored by both. Swing voters win elections and those are the people that politicians care about.” I can see the analogy between Jews and Blacks, but only on the surface. There are other more complicated reason there are disparities between the political clout between both groups besides party loyalty, aside from when the occasional “that’s racist” controversy, it’s the fact that Jewish Americans as a voting block vote, have effective lobbying efforts within DC, are statistically a financially better of demographic than African Americans, and have less socio-economic issues plaguing them, aside from Israel, than African-Americans, where you have education, jobs, institutionalized racism, etc etc, the list goes on.
But I would say the main difference is the fact that Jewish Americans vote, and largely take it seriously. African-Americans don’t. Their voting numbers when back down to 2006, and it was only up a bit in 2008. So there is a voter turnout problem when it comes to the African-American/Urban vote, and it extends beyond election day, African-Americans across the spectrum are not politically active. So what happens is that they get ignored.
Still, I agree that I don’t think it’s effective for you to vote not on your interest but party loyalty, because when a politician knows that they can get your vote regardless they are less inclined to address your needs.
steven TR
I wish more had been concerned with proposition 19 in California legalizing marijuana. Supporting that would be beneficial to both groups. It’s the kind of thing where if they had the gay vote, the favor would be reciprocated. There has been no mention of it here before the election or after and we are the kind of people who should stick together, not waiting for some political polarity to hand feed us our rights.
John D
@Baxter: Except that Jews vote overwhelmingly Democratic. In 2004, 68% of Jewish voters were Democrats. 74% voted for Kerry. Obama 78% of the Jewish vote. (And about 74% of California Jews voted against Prop 8,.)
So, if gay people were more like Jews, we’d be more tied to the Democrats.
Of course, the Republicans court Jews. That’s one difference.
The Truth
Neither party is going to do anything for gay rights. They are using it to play political games, and will do so for at least another two years.
If you think either Obama or the new GOP is going to single-handedly give you gay rights, you are out of your mind.
damon459
All those who were pissed at the Dems and thing the GOP are suddenly going to give us what we want I’ll be sure to rub it in your faces in two yrs when nothing has changed. These people are going to be to busy trying to Impeach Obama and remove the health care bill. It’s no wonder the politicians in the country are so willing to make promises they won’t keep why should they? Even if they try we bash them for not moving fast enough and cut off the gay ATM and vote in the party who openly hates us. I once thought I would see us achieve our goals in my lifetime now I don’t see it happening anytime soon let alone my lifetime. Thanks to those who voted for the GOP and those who were to lazy to vote at all your a great help to our cause.
J. Clarence
@The Truth: I hate that I have to repeat this so much, but it seems its necessary to get it to sink in. So here I ago, again: the majority–as in “most”, “a lot”, “almost all”–Democrats in the House and Senate voted to repeal Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Republicans in the Senate blocked it from passing, one Republican in fact, Sen. Jon McCain, the last presidential candidate for the Republican Party.
Democrats (and a few moderate Republicans) also defeated the Federal Marriage Amendment in 2006, which would have defined marriage as between one man and one woman. Democrats passed the Matthew Shepard Act. A Democratic administration ordered that gay spouses be allowed to visit loved ones in the hospital. Under a Democratic administration have we seen the Pentagon actually pushed (though not hard enough, some would argue) to review how to implement repeal.
Now, I know that’s not everything on our list, and goodness knows a lot of it took way to long to happen, and what is left on the list isn’t happening fast enough. However, as imperfect as Democrats are, to suggest that they don’t care is foolish, because they are not winning votes with their religious and conservative constituencies when they vote in the affirmative of gay-rights policies.
So criticize the president and Democrats in congress for not moving fast enough. Criticize them for not making gay-rights a high enough priority. Criticize them for making bad decisions like the rhetoric used to defend policies they disagree with. All of those things are fine, and ultimately do a good job of holding them accountable. But don’t start making up things that historically aren’t true.
Mark
The Democrats failed to act when they had the majority after decades of mounting anti-Gay legislation, discrimination and persecution. Being thrown under the bus repeatedly on top of all the promises of change just around the corner is tedious. The empty platitudes are insulting. There is no excuse for such poor leadership, no cohesive strategy and a lack of courage and will. We’ll now have to suffer longer to be treated equally by our Government.
robert in nyc
Gays who vote republican must be self-loathers, selfish, delusional or all of the above. Name one piece of legislation the GOP has authored by its own volition let alone supported overwhelmingly? It doesn’t want DADT or DOMA repealed or ENDA enacted. You get what you vote for and tuesday’s disaster has caused a major setback, no thanks to our own kind. Yes, I’ll concede the Democrats have been pretty bad on getting equality laws passed but now, we’ll get nothing with the psycho-talking mental midgets and their tea bagger shills controlling the house, make no mistake about that.
jason
You will never get anywhere as a community if you keep voting for Democrats. That’s because the Democrats will take you for granted and assume they don’t have to do anything in order to secure your vote. If you were a smart community, you would put conditions on your vote. You’d say “you have to earn my vote”.
Keep voting Democrat if you wish. I can guarantee you that you will get nowhere. The Democrats want to keep DADT alive so that they can have the DADT string to pull come election time. If they got rid of DADT, they wouldn’t be able to pull this string anymore.
You gays remind me of the Jews who were marched to Auschwitz under the direction of friendly German SS officers. Going to hell in the Democratic hand-basket is what you seem to enjoy. Good luck, enjoy the journey.
soul_erosion
@No.25 MARK:”We’ll now have to suffer longer to be treated equally by our Government.” You couldn’t be any more correct about that statement. The most alarming numbers for the upcoming 2012 election is the fact that 23 Democratic held seats in the Senate will be up for re-election and only 9 Republican seats. We are doomed for at least another decade or the foreseeable future. I am not only out of steam, but I am out of hope.
robert in nyc
So Jason, what’s the alternative, vote for the republicans? Since when have they campaigned for equality? I’ll ask again, which bills have they authored favoring LGBT voters? How come they didn’t want to repeal DADT with the democrats pushing for it? Why haven’t they championed its demise? I’m a Green but I know most people don’t think they have a chance. Well, if every gay man and woman voted for them they would. We already have a Green independent in Vermont, Bernie Sanders who always votes with the democrats to stop the republicans taking this country back to the “good old days” of Bush 43. I only voted for democrats to keep the fascists on the right out of power. If you’re ok living without any equality and want to go on being dehumanized and denigrated by the republicans and their tea bagger shill nutjobs and religious bigot base, then that’s your choice. Misery loves company anyway.
Closet case Mitch McConnell said that if the democrats want to move forward (meaning that they must do everything the republicans demand), then the democrats will get no help from them, which means no health care reform, social security privatized or wiped out, medicare stripped down or wiped out and some want it abolished altogether, reverse the S-CHIP program for children, no regulation on Wall Street whatsoever, mortgage lenders will continue to go unchecked. The republicans have no intention helping anyone but themselves. Power and money is all they care about. . They want to take us back to the Bush era of greed and corruption on Wall Street. They don’t want any kind of regulation to prevent another meltdown. They want to continue shipping manufacturing jobs overseas to China, India and elsewhere and to hell with American Labor and jobs. If anything, that’s un-American. Without a manufacturing base at home, the economy can’t make any strong recovery. When we don’t make anything, we can’t export anything, simple as that. That’s their idea of “free trade”. Huge profits for the corporate robber barons and nothing for the workers. Corporations and huge tax cuts do NOT creat jobs. Where were those jobs under 8 years of Bush? I know where they are, in China and India, among others. There was hardly any significant job creation under Bush 43 and look how many tax cuts he made. So much for free trade. If that’s what you want, so be it. You get what you vote for and its true, elections do have consequences.
tears for my queers
These numbers are no surprise.
In 2008, 28 percent of gays voted voted for the anti-gay John McCain. In 2000, 25 percent voted for George W. Bush- who proudly stated his support for anti-sodomy laws.
African-Americans have always been a loyal contituency for the Democrats. Gays? No.
The chairman of the Democratic Party is probably looking at these exit polls right now and thinking “these gays are a bunch of whiney ungrateful morons who are dumb enough to vote for the party that is on the record against gay equality. Screw the gays, they’re a lost cause. Nothing will ever please them.”
Great work gays…you’ll now get the government you deserve.
Student
The only gays who vote Republican are white. There I said it.
jason
Where are all those Obama apologists now, the ones who yelled out how Obama was going to repeal DADT? Are they hiding their embarrassed little faces? I would hide my face too if I had been so gullible.
Face it, guys, many of you are pathetic. You put your faith in losers like Obama. Many of you are more interested in fucking than in fighting for your rights.
robert in nyc
Jason, so tell us. What are the republicans going to do for you and other gays who voted for them now they have control of the house? Give us details please. What are John Boehner, Eric Cantor and Mitch McConnell going to do about that? We want to know which equality bills they’re going to support and legalize. Please provide the list. They even opposed this administration granting benefits to partners of federal workers which your party opposed as well as making it legal for same-sex partners to make hospital visits and decisions in hospitals funded by the government. Even if DADT by some miracle is passed, do you really think that will be to the credit of the Log Cabiners or the republicans? How many of them support repeal compared to the democrats? Can you explain why you and others like you vote for a party that doesn’t want you to have equality? Can you honestly say you’re comfortable with that and accept it?
reason
@Baxter: You need to check your facts Blacks and Jews vote democrat within a few points of each other. The difference is that more Jews are affluent so clearly some will be corrupted by money, but the vast majority are not. The truth is the GOP is going to go after Jews and Blacks a lot faster then gays. They are after wealth and Christianity, and the wealth Black Christians as well as Jews have been courted by the GOP for a while. You will find that most affluent Black churches have Republican leadership.
J. Clarence
@jason: So let me see if I understand your argument: Democrats in the House passed their bill to repeal DADT, and Democrats in the Senate voted to do so as well (again, the vast majority of Democrats in that chamber), but because of conservative Democrats, like Ben Nelson, and the fact that they couldn’t defeat a Republican filibuster means that there is a Democratic conspiracy to keep DADT alive, so that they can continue to get money from gay Americans.
Yeah, I’m fairly sure that one of the dumbest conspiracies that I have heard of.
GaryG
Am I the only one who wonders if Jason can see Russia from his house???
Queer Supremacist
@Student: If it wasn’t for us white gays you people would be pieces of strange fruit hanging on Southern trees. If it wasn’t for us white gays you’d still be imprisoned for having sex in all 50 states. If it wasn’t for us white gays DADT would never have been challenged. You owe us.
There, I said it.
The party that gave us Saddam Hussein Obama, the most homophobic president in history, and the people who support him, deserve no loyalty. They have done nothing to deserve it. They went from the party of slavery, sedition, and segregation to the party of socialism, surrender, and stealing our money. We gave them votes. They gave us a president who signed DADT and DOMA into law, making it a great example of bi-partisanship. Then they gave us another president who is fighting to keep DADT legal in the name of “unit cohesion” by convincing the most “liberal” court in the country to overturn a lawsuit by Log Cabin REPUBLICANS that made DADT unconstitutional.
Gay Democrats are the real self-loathers. I’m starting to think you like the game they play with you. And you blame everyone but yourselves for their failure to deliver what they had no intention of delivering.
@GaryG: You mean Jason’s really Tina Fey? Good one.
Jason
I am all for us not voting for the Dems and I don’t plan voting for them in 2012 if Obama and the current congress does not pass lifting DADT during the lame duck session. I keep hearing “It’s not the right time” however when will it ever be the right time? If they cant move any LGBT legislation through in 2 years than they are not worth my vote. I also will not vote for the Republican party either, I have voted in every election since I have been legal to do so, but I guess I will have to start voting for a third party candidate.
Jim in St Louis
Seems like a pretty small sample to draw any conclusions from. I always wonder why more gays don’t vote libertarian. Any ideas ?