Monday, April 28th, 2008...10:24 am
Generation Gap
For those of you following the latest hoopla regarding outlawing gay marriage in our great state (shh…don’t tell them it’s already illegal), I ran across an interesting set of statistics.
You can still find some exit poll numbers for 2006’s failed Protect Marriage Arizona effort at CNN’s website. We Grand Canyon State liberals love to point out that here in the supposedly right wing haven of Arizona, we were the only state that so far has rejected such a law at the ballot box.
One statistic that is noticable is the age breakdown. The initiative won people over 65 (55%), but lost those under 65 (47%). The numbers are broken down further, folks between 30 and 44 (we Gen Xers) only passed it with the barest plurality (51%). Gen Y (Under 30. We call it “Gen Why?” whenever we are forced to endure Fall Out Boy) only gave it 39% of their vote.
This makes me wonder what sort of future there is for such efforts, especially as those who grew up watching Will and Grace and Queer Eye become a bigger part of the electorate.
My other question is for some of the younger legislators that signed on to this, especially those from Southern Arizona. The 2006 effort did badly here in Pima County and Santa Cruz County, and there simply weren’t enough votes in more conservative areas of Cochise County to make up for it. Tim Bee seems to have dialed back on his more public backing of this bill, most likely after he realized how little clamor there actually was for it. Jonathan Paton, however, still seems to be firmly on board. How long will it take for Paton to listen to the fellow members of his generation (including Michelle Regan, one of only two Republicans not so sign on to this) and withdraw his support from this bill?
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