This post is by TNG Associate Contributor Corey.

Twenty-six years ago in the state of California, an African American named Tom Bradley was leading in all the polls for the governor’s race. On election day, howver, he lost to the white, Republican candidate by just over 1%. Pollsters and pundits decided the explanation was that many white voters felt uncomfortable telling a pollster they wouldn’t vote for the minority candidate, but couldn’t actually bring themselves to vote for a black man in the voting booth.

Tom Bradley, meet Proposition 8.

Californians may have gotten over what became known as the “Bradley Effect”; indeed, Barack Obama won California by around 24%, a bigger margin than the polls before Nov. 4th suggested, and a much larger number than John Kerry’s 11% advantage in 2004. However, an analysis from the director of The Field Poll of California shows a new Bradley Effect emerged regarding Proposition 8.

Polls showed voters favoring a rejection of Prop 8 in every single poll by an average of almost 12% leading up to election day, yet it passed by a 4.6% margin when people actually cast their votes. The author of that article, Mark DiCamillo, thinks that it had more to do with TV advertising, last-minute appeals by religious officials, and other efforts by the proponents of Prop 8 than anything else.

But in my mind, this doesn’t make much sense. Those factors may have affected the situation, but I don’t think they can be solely held responsible. After all, most people who are undecided or don’t know what a proposition is tend to vote no, figuring that no change is better than accidentally voting for something they don’t want. For those of you who think everyone HAD to know about Prop 8 by election day, you have a lot more faith in the electorate than I do. Many opponents also believed that by the time people voted, so many gay couples would have been married or expressed interest in doing so that Californians would feel uncomfortable voting directly against the rights of a family member, coworker, friend-of-a-friend, etc.

My point is that there were a lot of factors that could have been in play, but when all the polls showed the proposition failing by safe margins, and it passed, a new type of Bradley Effect seems highly likely.

What does this mean for us? It means that a decent chunk of people may well feel embarrassed about their homophobia. They know that it’s not politically correct, they feel kind of bad about it, and they don’t want to seem like bigots, but they still can’t get behind gay rights. On the one hand, this is disheartening. I am especially discouraged when I hear hetero friends rail against Prop 8 and find myself wondering, if they had been in the voting booth that day, would they have actually voted against it?

But there’s an upside, too. It means that people are polarized by the anti-gay movement in this country. They don’t want to be associated with the likes of the Westboro Baptist Church, Pat Robertson, or even the “Yes on 8″ folks. But they’re still hesitant. They need encouragement. They need a little extra nudge.

Folks, the way to bring people into the fold isn’t by pointing fingers, demonizing huge groups of people, or letting our anger and disappointment consume us. We broaden our coalition by opening our arms, opening our doors, and reaching out to other people. We do it with patience, with courage, and with love. (Or, as Stephanie might put it, by increasing our allies – whatever the fuck that means.)

We have a lot of people half-way there. They don’t want to be seen as anti-gay. They don’t want to offend gay friends, or feel like homophobic relics of a different era. They just need to be led over the divide and come to realize why it’s so important for them to stand up for the rights of others, even if it makes them feel a little uncomfortable.

It’s going to take time, and a redirection of our energy away from anger and towards enthusiasm and hope. As we’ve seen in recent years, it’s a lot harder to build a coalition around what we have in common with others and the possibility of a better tomorrow than it is to use Karl Rove-style politics to scare and alienate people. But on Tuesday we learned that it’s not impossible if we come together and work hard.

So let’s bring this out into the open. Let’s talk to our friends and our families about this. Let’s march. Let’s show people why we need their help, and show them that this movement isn’t just about the queer community – it’s about Americans coming together and doing the right thing, regardless of their orientation, religious views, political identification, or ethnicity. Let’s be the exact opposite of those who would legislate hate, and work on bringing people together instead of tearing them apart.

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