Election day has ‘mixed’ results nationwide

Religious conservatives claimed victory in Texas as voters overwhelmingly approved a measure Nov. 8 bolstering the state’s ban on same-sex “marriage.”

But religious conservatives lost electoral fights to pass an abortion law in California, overturn gay-rights legislation in Maine and defeat a bond issue in Ohio that critics said could fund embryonic stem-cell research.

“It was definitely a mixed night,” said Mona Passignano, state issues analyst at Focus on the Family Action, a Colorado Springs, Colo., evangelical organization founded by religious broadcaster James Dobson.

“The Texas victory was huge, but the other ones — Maine and California — those were significant losses,” Passignano said Nov. 9. “Maine, we knew, was going to be close. But California, it looked like we could win.”

“2005 is not a victory for the Republican right, including the cultural and religious issues,” Alan Wolfe, a Boston College political scientist who directs the Boisi Center for Religion and American Public Life, said Nov. 9.

But Corwin Smidt, a political scientist at Calvin College, a Grand Rapids, Mich., school with evangelical ties, cautioned against reading too much into what he characterized as “very scattered, isolated, distinctive ballot proposals.”

In the balloting Nov. 8:

• By a 3-to-1 margin, Texas became the 18th state to write a ban on same-sex “marriage” into its constitution. Republican Gov. Rick Perry and many churches supported the amendment. “The Texas Constitution will now protect marriage, families and the state that we love,” Republican Party Chairwoman Tina Benkiser said. But Matt Foreman, executive director of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, blamed the outcome on “the lies and smears of anti-gay zealots and the profound unfairness of having minority rights put up for a popular vote.”
• A California measure that would have required doctors to notify the parents of teenage girls seeking abortions failed, with 53 percent voting against it.
• Maine voters upheld a new state law that bans discrimination based on sexual orientation. Voters twice before, in 1998 and 2000, had rejected similar measures. “After 28 years, it’s over, you guys. We won,” gay-rights advocate Pat Peard told supporters in Portland the night of Nov. 8, as reported by the Portland Press Herald.
• Fifty-four percent of Ohio voters supported State Issue 1, a $2 billion ballot measure for bridges, roads and infrastructure repairs that includes $500 million for research and development. Anti-abortion groups and Christian conservatives opposed the measure, saying they feared taxpayer money could be used to finance embryonic stem-cell research.