Many Hispanics oppose gay marriage

WASHINGTON -- Daniel de Leon has been counseling Latinos with family problems for three decades and fears that the nation's movement towards gay marriage will make the situation worse.

"Those kids are going to suffer," said de Leon, pastor of Templo Calvario in Santa Ana, Calif., the largest Hispanic Evangelical church in the United States. "It's not just a matter of sex, or a matter of two adults being together and having their way. . . . To us, a man and a woman are here to create a family and the family needs that support of Daddy and Momma."

De Leon's concerns echo a fear shared by many Hispanics that gay marriage threatens the concept of the family, practically sacred in Latino culture.

A national survey and polls in different regions show that support for gay marriage and homosexual behavior in general is lower among Hispanics than whites. Only African-Americans have stronger feelings against marriage for gays and lesbians.

In several communities, black and Hispanic priests and pastors are speaking out in favor of a constitutional amendment that would define marriage as a union between a man and a woman. In Maryland, the only Hispanic in the state senate is leading the charge against gay marriage.

Several states with large Hispanic populations -- including Texas, Florida, California, Illinois and Arizona -- already have laws prohibiting or not recognizing same-sex marriages.

Gay rights activists, however, say that the few polls conducted on Latinos and gay marriage are misleading. Given the proper information, the say, Hispanics see the issue as a quest for fairness and civil rights.

"Whether their personal conviction or their religious conviction may tell them otherwise, they see discrimination when one group receives benefits that are denied to another group," said Martin Ornelas-Quintero, executive director of LLEGO, a national Latino lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender organization.

Ornelas-Quintero said his group finds positive reactions to gay marriage in Latino focus groups in places such as New York and Miami.

"When people see that a life partner of someone else can not make their medical decisions because they don't have the legal protections under the law, they see it as discrimination," he said.

Political experts are divided on whether gay marriage will be a major factor this year for Hispanic voters, a key swing constituency in several key electoral states including Florida, New Mexico and Arizona.

Some say that Latinos will be strongly influenced by social issues, including gay marriage and abortion, while others say that voters will consider only the economy, education and the war in Iraq.

President Bush's endorsement last month of a constitutional amendment that would ban homosexual marriages may have caught the attention of religious Latinos.

A comprehensive national survey of U.S. Hispanics by the Pew Hispanic Center and the Kaiser Family Foundation showed that 72 percent of Latinos believe that homosexual sex between adults is "unacceptable," compared to 59 percent of whites.

The poll, released in a 2002 report, also showed Latinos to be more conservative on other social issues, such as abortion and divorce.

In New York state, a recent poll of Democratic voters showed that 27 percent of Hispanics thought gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry legally, compared to 47 percent for whites. The poll was taken earlier this month by Edison Media Research for five television stations and the Associated Press.

In Florida, a recent poll showed that 20 percent of Hispanics in that state support same-sex marriage, compared to 29 percent of whites. The phone survey by Schroth & Associates for the St. Petersburg Times had a margin of error of 3.5 percentage points.

Harry Pachon, president of the Tomas Rivera Policy Institute at the University of Southern California, said that the survey results are no surprise.

Around 40 percent of Latino voters are foreign-born, naturalized citizens who come from very conservative, Catholic Latin American nations, he said.

But the tolerance for gay marriage and gay clergy increases markedly in the second generation, Pachon added.

Steffen Schmidt, a political science professor at Iowa State University who studies Latino voting patterns, said some Hispanics vote with the church on certain things such as abortion and gay marriage.

"Latinos on some issues are somewhat like Southerners," he said. "A lot of them are practicing Catholics and simply believe that homosexuality is a sin."

Seventy percent of Hispanics surveyed in the Pew Hispanic Center study identified themselves as Catholic, and 14 percent as evangelical or born-again Christians.

Schmidt said the recent ruling by Massachusetts' highest court that gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry creates a "giant problem for Democrats."

Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts, Bush's apparent Democratic rival in November, is also against gay marriage, but opposes amending the Constitution. Kerry does support civil unions for gays and lesbians, while Bush says it is a matter for the states to decide.

De Leon said that Latinos at his church are extremely concerned about gay marriage and what it means for society.

"The polygamists are already in line," he said. "You open this thing up, and nobody knows where it's going to go."

But Pachon said that gay marriage is only one of many issues that could influence Hispanic voters this year and probably not in the top tier.

"It's not the hot-button issue that people want to make it out to be," he said. "The real issues of concern are education and the economy and even gun control . . . crime on the streets."

No big surprise here, although the lamestream media would prefer you didn't know about it. Of course Latinos are more conservative on family issues ... in fact, this and the fact that African Americans are also more strongly against gay marriage than whites may be what saves this country from a descent into utter depravity.

I hope these idiots like Gavin "any twosome" Newsome keep pushing their extremist agenda right up until election day ... it will tend to drive Hispanic and African-American voters to the GOP, or at least away from the rats.

Stories like these and the reports on opposition to gay marriage in the black community are very encouraging. With Hispanics 65/35 Democrat we have an electoral demographic time bomb. If the Democrats could sit out the clock for a decade or two without imploding they could achieve a dominant majority. Fortunately for us they insist on worshipping at the altars of homosexuality and abortion. It appears that in the same time it takes their constituency to achieve a demographic majority they will lose that constituency. There is a good likelihood that the Rats may lose key states in the 2004 election because of lower vote totals in the black community. To win states like PA, OH, WI, MO, and FL Democrats have relied on 95-96% of the black vote. Republican talk of making inroads in the black community are often discounted but that is because the scoffers think 20 or 30 % of blacks will never vote for Republicans. What they fail to understand is that just a 8-9 percent GOP black vote would be devastating to the Rats. With issues like gay marriage and abortion strongly opposed in the Hispanic community, Rats face the same defections there. States like AZ, NM, CO, and NV slide easily into the GOP column if the Democrats are unable to count on a wholesale Hispanic vote. Democrats face not just defection but even more likely disaffection. Particularly in the black community where voters have been long conditioned to avoid the GOP, the Democrats may face a voting population that stays home rather than votes for gay marriage, appeasement of terrorists, and failed government schools.

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