Votes continue to come in as more presbyteries vote. Here are the latest numbers.
Blackhawk:
2001-2 01-A: 48 yes, 90 no --> 35% YES
2009 08-B: 57 yes, 73 no --> 44% YES
A strong 9% pro-equality shift from Blackhawk, again confirming the trend that presbyteries with over 30% previous pro-equality support are mostly shifting pro-LGBT. Blackhawk now moves into "candidate swing presbytery" territory with that 44% pro-equality support level.
Chicago:
2001-2 01-A: 247 yes, 170 no --> 59% YES
2009 08-B: 204 yes, 69 no --> 75% YES
This is a strong 16% pro-LGBT shift here from Chicago. The dropoff in total votes seems rather large -- that's 144 fewer votes in 2009 than in 2002. I'm not sure if that tells us anything or not.
Cimarron:
2001-2 01-A: 16 yes, 20 no --> 44.4% YES
2009 08-B: 19 yes, 16 no --> 54.3% YES
Cimarron flips from anti-equality to pro-equality! This was definitely one of those "every vote counts" situations, as was the next in our list...
Cincinnati:
2001-2 01-A: 95 yes, 113 no --> 45.7% YES
2009 08-B: 83 yes, 83 no --> 50.0% YES (but not sufficient to pass)
This is something of a disappointment and presumably was frustrating for LGBT supporters in Cincinnati, to have the vote come out exactly split like this. An exact tie unfortunately isn't sufficient to pass an overture, so this gets recorded as a "no" vote on 08-B from Cincinnati presbytery. We ideally should have been able to flip this presbytery pro-equality this year, since it was already in the mid-40's, but we missed it by 1 vote. Somewhere out there, some More Light supporter in Cincinnati is probably losing sleep over why they decided to skip the presbytery meeting this week. The lesson to take here is probably "don't be the person who skips the presbytery meeting - it could end up as a tie!"
However it's still a 4% pro-equality shift, so we'll get there eventually.
