tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37506536664159001012024-02-08T09:48:00.105-08:00PCUSA 08B overture informationProviding vote counts and analysis on PCUSA overture and proposed amendment 08-B.Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comBlogger28125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-80423699211010336972009-05-30T23:07:00.000-07:002009-05-18T20:36:15.134-07:00Welcome to the site<a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pz4ZcEBLpqZuM9uHsVdKKWw">View 08-B voting results here</a><span style="font-family:arial;">.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This site provides vote-tracking information and some analysis and commentary on </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.pcusa.org/">PCUSA</a> (Presbyterian Church USA) proposed <a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.covenantnetwork.org/resources/OrgFor08B.html">amendment 08-B</a><span style="font-family:arial;">, originally known as the Boston Ordination Equality Overture, which would remove the "don't ask, don't tell" anti-gay policy which is presently written into the PCUSA constitution. The anti-gay policy is section G-6.0106b of the Presbyterian Book of Order, so amendments like 08-B are often called "delete-b" amendments. Amendment 08-B is an LGBT equality overture which seeks to remove systemic discrimination from the official Presbyterian rulebook.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This web site also maintains a </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pz4ZcEBLpqZuM9uHsVdKKWw">tracking and information spreadsheet</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> about ongoing 08-B votes, which compares presbytery votes on the previous delete-b effort "01-A" in 2001-2, to presbytery votes on 08-B this year. To my knowledge, no other 08-B tracking site provides this sort of clear comparison of vote percentages.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">For additional news about LGBT equality efforts within the PCUSA, see the </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.mlp.org/">More Light Presbyterians</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> (MLP) web site. You can also read MLP's </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.mlp.org/article.php?story=20080627141501803">press release and announcement</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> when 08-B was originally passed at the national (General Assembly) level.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This site is maintained by Bruce Hahne, a PCUSA member who lives in California. All notes and commentary posted here are my own, and this site is maintained independently of other organizations' web sites.</span>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-67958314174913312102009-05-18T20:33:00.000-07:002009-05-18T20:38:02.084-07:0008-B vote wrapup, May 1-18<div class="moz-text-flowed" style=";font-family:arial;font-size:13px;" lang="x-western">We've gone about half a month without an 08-B presbytery vote wrapup, which is probably good since it's given us some time to accumulate 10 new votes for everybody's perusal.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">SUMMARY FOR MAY 1-18: </span><br /><br />Yes votes: 6<br />No votes: 4<br />No-to-yes flips: 2 out of a target 3, plus Utah as "bonus flip".<br />Previous "yes" presbyteries held at "yes": 3 out of 3<br /><br />Presbyteries shifting pro-equality: 7<br />Presbyteries shifting anti-equality: 3<br /><br />Nasty surprises: 0<br />Amazingly positive surprises (unexpected flips): 1 (Utah)<br />Annoyances: 2<br /><br />Bruce's rating for the week: "Excellent results"<br /><br />Total presbytery "yes" votes so far: 77<br />Total presbytery "no" votes so far: 92<br /><br />"Popular vote" totals of presbytery individual votes:<br />"Yes" popular vote: 10359 (49%)<br />"No" popular vote: 10791 (51%)<br /><br /><br />May has been a strong month for pro-equality efforts on 08-B so far, with two out of three target presbyteries flipped from "no" to "yes", a surprise win in Utah, two total blowout votes for "yes" with huge pro-equality shifts, and a strong pro-LGBT shift in Savannah which bodes well for the future. The ratio of pro-equality to anti-equality vote shifts isn't quite at the 3:1 ratio that I'd like to see, however that's pretty much due to the statistically insignificant slight negative vote shift in Kiskiminetas.<br /><br />Before we dive into the individual votes, I wanted to step back for a moment and take a look at a few of the bigger-picture numbers. If we look at what I call the "popular vote" totals, by which I mean the number of actual human beings at presbytery meetings who voted either "yes" or "no" on 08-B, the count is almost exactly tied, at 49% "yes" and 51% "no". That's up from about 43% "yes", 57% "no" seven years ago. So we're not quite at a "1% pro-LGBT shift per year" rule of thumb, but we're close. The current 49%-51% split obviously says that we're at the tipping point -- in just a few years we'll be above 50% support in the presbytery popular vote, we can get rid of G6.0106b, and then start the healing process within the denomination to recover from years of institutionalized discrimination. The numbers also show, by the way, that years of pro-equality education and activism will continue to be necessary even after the denomination eliminates G6.0106b.<br /><br />Another numeric point to note, which so far no news story that I'm aware of has covered, is that despite ongoing hand-wringing about denominational membership declines, the pro-equality portion of the PCUSA is growing numerically, if we use the presbytery popular vote counts as a guide. Here are the popular vote totals comparing 2001-2 to 2009, counting only presbyteries which have voted so far:<br /><br />2001-2 YES votes: 10189<br />2009 YES votes: 10359 (+1.7%)<br /><br />2001-2 NO votes: 13273<br />2009 NO votes: 10791 (-18.7%)<br /><br />So despite the fact that the PCUSA as a denomination is shrinking by roughly 2% per year in its total membership, we see nearly a 2% INCREASE in the absolute "yes" vote count when we compare 2009 to 2001-2, while the total anti-equality votes saw nearly a 20% decline. The future of the PCUSA is clearly on the side of LGBT equality.<br /><br />One final numerical tidbit, for those tracking the overall presbytery vote counts, is that it's now numerically impossible for the "no" vote count to break 100, as it did the last time around in 2001-2. We'll likely end up with a presbytery vote count of about 77 "yes" and 96 "no", which of course is much stronger than the lopsided vote count of 2001-2.<br /><br />Still coming up this month, we have either 3 or 4 presbyteries still to vote, depending on whether we're to believe reports that Midwest Hanmi has no plans to vote on 08-B at all. The remaining presbyteries are Midwest Hanmi, Missouri River Valley, Noroeste, and Soroeste. Three of these four presbyteries are solidly in the "no" camp barring a highly unusual miracle -- sudden manifestations of angelic choirs singing hymns of praise to 08-B, that kind of thing -- while Missouri River Valley is a complete tossup and a "target flip" presbytery, having previously voted 49% yes / 51% no in 2001-2. So send some love to Missouri River Valley and to the More Light supporters doing the get-out-the-vote work -- let's see if this presbytery can become no-to-yes flip number 34.<br /><br />Now let's dive into the individual presbytery votes to take a look. Thankfully, this time around I'm able to eliminate my "bad news" category, since we had no nasty surprises or unexpected yes-to-no flips. Now that I actually put these into categories, I see that this really has been a good month -- it's unusual to see 6 out of 10 presbytery votes categorized in the "successes" section.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">ANNOYING </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Dakota </span><br />2001-2 01-A: 1 yes, 20 no --> 5% YES<br />2009 08-B: 0 yes, unknown count no --> 0% YES (-5%)<br /><br />For Dakota I don't even have the exact vote count, though I do have a report that claims it was "unanimous no". Essentially we can say that Dakota stayed steady in its anti-equality stance, though it would have been nice if the one person who voted "yes" in 2001-2 had been around in 2009 to again vote "yes" in 2009.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Middle Tennessee </span><br />2001-2 01-A: 95 yes, 118 no --> 44.6% YES<br />2009 08-B: 95 yes, 139 no --> 40.6% YES (-4.0%)<br /><br />Given its previous pro-equality support of nearly 45%, Middle Tennessee was a "target to flip" presbytery, however we ended up with a 4% ANTI-equality shift compared to 2001-2. The numbers here are interesting -- note how the "yes" vote held at 95 votes in 2009, while the "no" vote count increased by 21 people. To me this suggests that the anti-equality side did some significant get-out-the-vote (GOTV) work to bring up their numbers. Perhaps the lesson here is the obvious one: anti-equality people can do GOTV too, and they may often have an untapped reservoir of "no" supporters who can be mobilized to attend the presbytery meeting and vote against equality. So as always, we can never take any presbytery for granted, particularly those in the 40% to 60% range of support.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">NEUTRAL </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Kiskiminetas </span><br />2001-2 01-A: 35 yes, 76 no --> 31.5% YES<br />2009 08-B: 34 yes, 76 no --> 30.9% YES (-0.6%)<br /><br />Kiskiminetas here comes in with a vote essentially identical to 2001-2. There's no change in the "no" vote count at all, and a loss of one vote on the "yes" side, giving us a statistically insignificant anti-equality shift.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">SLIGHTLY POSITIVE </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Southern New England </span><br />2001-2 01-A: 109 yes, 72 no --> 60.2% YES<br />2009 08-B: 97 yes, 50 no --> 66.0% YES (+5.8%)<br /><br />Here a decline of 12 votes on the "yes" side was thankfully overmatched by a decline of 22 votes on the "no" side, giving us a net positive vote percentage shift of about 6%. It would be nice to see if we can get that "yes" vote count above 100 the next time around, reversing the decline.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">SUCCESSES </span><br /><br />We have an interesting lineup of successes this time around. Two of them are successful no-to-yes flips, three of them I list here simply because of the huge percentage shifts, and then we have Utah as our surprise bonus no-to-yes flip.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Pacific </span><br />2001-2 01-A: 99 yes, 100 no --> 49.7% YES<br />2009 08-B: 100 yes, 90 no --> 52.6% YES (+2.9%)<br /><br />Pacific was an obvious "target flip" presbytery given its 2001-2 vote, and we did make it just over the "yes" tipping point, though not by a lot. Equality supporters were able to hold the "yes" vote count at the same level as 2001-2, while there was a 10% reduction (100 down to 90) in the "no" votes. Nice job in Pacific presbytery -- every no-to-yes flip is great news.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Minnesota Valleys </span><br />2001-2 01-A: 44 yes, 60 no --> 42.3% YES<br />2009 08-B: 44 yes, 37 no --> 54.3% YES (+12.0%)<br /><br />The Minnesota Valleys vote looks something like an amplified version of Pacific: as in Pacific, equality supporters held the "yes" vote count at 2001-2 levels, while in this case the "no" vote collapsed compared to 2001-2, giving us a large 12% pro-equality shift and another no-to-yes flip. This is an example of a presbytery that we definitely can't take for granted in future years, since all that the "no" side needs to do is some extra get-out-the-vote work, and they'll likely bring the "no" vote count back up to some extent.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Utah </span><br />2001-2 01-A: 21 yes, 32 no --> 39.6% YES<br />2009 08-B: 28 yes, 25 no --> 52.8% YES (+13.2%)<br /><br />Speaking as someone who presently lives in California, I must say that there's a strong sense of satisfaction to see Utah -- which of course was the source of much of the funding that bankrolled California anti-marriage Proposition 8 -- came out of nowhere to unexpectedly flip no-to-yes. "Yes" supporters increased their vote count by 33% (21 to 28), "no" votes declined by about 20% (32 to 25), and we end up with a no-to-yes flip. This is another example of a presbytery that we can't take for granted in the future, but of course it's fantastic to know that it's now competitive. Utah was a huge success for PCUSA equality this month, and a lot of work took place behind the scenes to make this no-to-yes flip happen. Very nice job here -- Utah really made my day when I heard this news.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">East Iowa </span><br />2001-2 01-A: 78 yes, 69 no --> 53% YES<br />2009 08-B: 74 yes, 21 no --> 78% YES (+25%)<br /><br />As a former Iowa resident (did I mention that I've moved around quite a bit?), I was biting my nails over whether we'd hold this presbytery at a "yes" vote. It turns out that I didn't need to worry -- this was a total blowout, with the "no" vote completely collapsing compared to 2001-2. I'd speculate that the recent rollout of marriage equality in Iowa probably played a psychological role in how the presbytery vote dynamics played out. Or maybe all of the potential "no" presbytery voters were out holding bake sales to raise money for a voter initiative to repeal marriage equality in Iowa, who knows.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Northern Waters </span><br />2001-2 01-A: 41 yes, 30 no --> 57.7% YES<br />2009 08-B: 53 yes, 11 no --> 82.8% YES (+25.1%)<br /><br />Here's another blowout on the numbers -- the "yes" vote count in this case goes up by over 25% compared to 2001-2, the "no" vote collapses, and we end up with a 25% pro-LGBT vote shift. Nice job with the pro-equality GOTV in Northern Waters.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Savannah </span><br />2001-2 01-A: 20 yes, 54 no --> 27.0% YES<br />2009 08-B: 29 yes, 38 no --> 43.3% YES (+16.3%)<br /><br />Typically I don't put presbyteries that voted "no" into the "successes" section, however given this strong pro-LGBT vote shift in Savannah, I felt it was merited. Supporters increased the "yes" count by nearly 50% (20 to 29), the "no" votes are declining, and we end up with a "Seeking a Miracle" presbytery shifting into the "target to flip next time" category. A 16% pro-equality shift from a presbytery previously at only 27% support is fantastic.<br /><br />________<br /><br /><br />As always, many thanks to all the More Light supporters working in every presbytery to win hearts and minds for equality. It takes all of us, whether we're having conversations with people about equality, or sending in a contribution to MLP, or doing our More Light Sunday prep work, to shift the denomination towards the eventual (and obviously imminent) repeal of G6.0106b.<br /><br /></div>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-37067069022109023812009-04-28T21:58:00.000-07:002009-04-28T22:02:34.396-07:00Vote wrapup, April 20-28<div class="moz-text-flowed" style="font-family: arial;font-family:arial;font-size:14px;" lang="x-western"><span style="font-size:100%;">It's been slightly over a week since I wrote the last 08-B vote update, and as it turns out two more votes have just come in tonight (Tuesday 4/28), so I'll include those here.<br /><br />This update covers all of the 08-B votes that I know of that took place from April 20 through April 28.<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >SUMMARY FOR THE WEEK AND A HALF: </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br />Yes votes: 6<br />No votes: 4<br />No-to-yes flips: 4 out of a target 5<br />Previous "yes" presbyteries held at "yes": 2 out of 4<br /><br />Presbyteries shifting pro-equality: 5<br />Presbyteries shifting anti-equality: 5<br /><br />Nasty surprises: 2 (San Francisco, Sierra Blanca)<br />Amazingly positive surprises (unexpected flips): 0<br />Annoyances: 2<br /><br />Bruce's rating for the week: "Worst week so far"<br /><br /><br />This week started out strong but then went downhill, with a double break in our perfect record of all previous "yes" presbytery votes held at "yes". As a result I've finally had to expand the categories for this week's wrapup to include a "BAD NEWS" category, covering votes which are just plain bad news, much more than "annoying".<br /><br />We had our first two, and hopefully last two, yes-to-no flips this week, and those plus the other "no" votes were enough to push the total presbytery "no" vote count above the 87-presbytery-vote ceiling needed to defeat 08-B. So if you were just here to watch for whether 08-B would pass or fail, you now know that result. I've telegraphed that likely result in several of my previous weekly updates, so it should come as no huge surprise, however please do be aware that a lot of equality supporters are in pain this week over the technical loss, so give them some extra hugs and then point out that we're still flipping presbyteries from "no" to "yes". More on the strong string of no-to-yes flips later. More Light Presbyterians also has an official statement up on its web site at <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.mlp.org/">www.mlp.org</a>. Some of the correspondence I've seen from MLP board and staff members has made it clear that there's a strong commitment to run this race through to the finish, i.e. MLP will continue to work for every vote in every presbytery. That's great news, because the work of shifting hearts and minds for equality doesn't stop just because we reached a semi-arbitrary presbytery vote count.<br /><br />Had the past 9 days gone "reasonably", or at least resembling the voting patterns so far, we would have ended up with 9 yes votes and 1 no vote, with Northern Plains being the only no vote. Instead, we were unable to flip Boise from its previous 50%-50% tie (more commentary on this later also), and we had the nasty pair of yes-to-no flips, one of which simply should never have happened (that would be you, San Francisco).<br /><br />This set of 10 presbyteries also gets an overall "annoying" for the tie of 5 presbyteries shifting pro-equality and 5 shifting anti-equality. This 50-50 split is a significant departure from the overall ratio of 3-to-1 pro-versus-anti-equality shifts. Had I written this wrapup on Sunday like I usually do, the numbers would have been even worse, with 5 anti-equality shifts and only 3 pro-equality shifts.<br /><br />So with that intro out of the way, here are the vote percentage breakdowns and some commentary.<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >BAD NEWS </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >San Francisco - YES-TO-NO FLIP </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />2001-2 01-A: 216 yes, 186 no --> 53.7% YES<br />2009 08-B: 167 yes, 177 no --> 48.5% YES (-5.2%)<br /><br />This yes-to-no flip now means that the phrase "remember San Francisco!" will be used as an admonition for at least the next 5 to 10 years within the PCUSA LGBT equality movement. There's already been a commitment made to do a post-08B-vote postmortem discussion about "what happened in San Francisco", though a look at the raw vote counts suggests to me that this was heavily a get-out-the-vote (GOTV) problem for equality supporters. The anti-equality faction didn't increase their own numbers -- they decreased. But look at the downward plunge in the "yes" votes from 2001-2 to 2009: 216 "yes" votes dropped down to 167 votes, nearly a 25% drop. This is what can happen if you get sloppy or complacent.<br /><br />Initial conversation has revealed that a number of equality supporters decided to skip the presbytery meeting and attend an out-of-town conference instead. I hope that San Francisco's experience now cures us of the belief that it's EVER a good idea to skip the presbytery meeting when a vote on LGBT equality is on the docket. I don't care if you've got a handwritten invitation to the second coming of Elijah -- you send back your RSVP to Elijah and say "so sorry I can't make it -- I've got to attend the presbytery meeting as part of my RESPONSIBILITY to vote for full equality."<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >Sierra Blanca - YES-TO-NO FLIP </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />2001-2 01-A: 18 yes, 17 no --> 51.4% YES<br />2009 08-B: 23 yes, 30 no --> 43.4% YES (-8.0%)<br /><br />Here's our second unfortunate yes-to-no flip, however it's not quite as dismaying as San Francisco. With vote counts down in the teens for the 2001-2 vote, it's difficult to predict in advance which way this presbytery might fall. The 2009 vote counts show an increase in both the "yes" and "no" votes at the presbytery, suggesting that both pro-equality and anti-equality advocates ran get-out-the-vote efforts, or at least that there was "heightened interest" in attending to express an opinion via a vote. Total presbytery attendance for the 2009 vote increased a whopping 50% compared to 2001-2. It's certainly possible that Sierra Blanca's "natural" level of pro-equality support is in the mid-40s percentage-wise, and that the 2001-2 one-vote-win was simply an outlier. Regardless, this isn't the kind of result that we want to see, with an 8% anti-LGBT vote shift that turns a previous "yes" into a "no".<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >ANNOYING </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >Boise </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />2001-2 01-A: 20 yes, 20 no --> 50% YES<br />2009 08-B: 25 yes, 34 no --> 42.4% YES (-7.6%)<br /><br />Boise is extremely similar to Sierra Blanca: small 2001-2 vote counts with a vote percentage hovering around a 50-50 split; a nearly 50% increase in presbytery attendance/voting in 2009 compared to 2001-2; and roughly an 8% negative-equality vote shift in 2009. The only reason why I don't list Boise in the "bad news" section above is that it was previously a "no" vote on 01-A in 2001-2 (remember that tie votes count as "no"), so Boise didn't end up being a yes-to-no flip. It was, however, one that looked like an easy pickup opportunity this year, but that wasn't what happened. Instead it looks again as if both the pro-equality and anti-equality groups did GOTV, and the anti-equality side was able to increase its vote count more than the pro-equality side.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >Northern Plains </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />2001-2 01-A: 35 yes, 51 no --> 40.7% YES<br />2009 08-B: 21 yes, 33 no --> 38.9% YES (-1.8%)<br /><br />Northern Plains was a long shot to flip no-to-yes, and we didn't flip it. The annoying part is the 1.8% anti-equality vote shift, although vote-shift percentages so small can't really be taken as a sign of anything other than statistical noise. The vote totals in 2009 are interesting in that they don't show the same trends as Boise and Sierra Blanca -- instead, here both sides show significantly reduced vote totals when compared to 2001-2 voting.<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >NEUTRAL </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >de Cristo </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />2001-2 01-A: 70 yes, 55 no --> 56% YES<br />2009 08-B: 59 yes, 48 no --> 55% YES (-1%)<br /><br />de Cristo was a "hold" presbytery which we did hold at pro-equality. Here I rate it as "neutral" since it's hard to tell what to do with that 1% anti-equality vote shift. That's within statistical noise, so I don't count de Cristo as "annoying", but without some sort of pro-equality shift it's not realistic for me to categorize this as "slightly positive".<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >SLIGHTLY POSITIVE </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >National Capital </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />2001-2 01-A: 220 yes, 116 no --> 65.5% YES<br />2009 08-B: 222 yes, 102 no --> 68.5% YES (+3.0%)<br /><br />National Capital is more representative of the vote-shift trend that we want to see, coming in with a modest pro-equality shift and increasing the total "yes" vote in 2009 compared to 2001-2, while the anti-equality side lost votes.<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >SUCCESSES </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /><br />This "successes" section only had two presbyteries in it until tonight (April 28), so maybe it's good that I procrastinated by two days. All of these are no-to-yes flips, two of them coming in AFTER the known defeat of 08-B when it reached 87 "no" presbytery votes. Three out of the four below are strong successes, with double-digit pro-equality vote shifts.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >Salem </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />2001-2 01-A: 160 yes, 187 no --> 46% YES<br />2009 08-B: 156 yes, 149 no --> 51% YES (+5%)<br /><br />Salem ekes out a 5% pro-equality vote shift and a no-to-yes flip, holding the 2009 "yes" vote count at almost the level of 2001 while the anti-equality vote count declined significantly. Nice job in Salem -- now the challenge is to reinforce that 51% support for equality and get it into the high 50's.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >Wabash Valley </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />2001-2 01-A: 83 yes, 102 no --> 44.9% YES<br />2009 08-B: 78 yes, 60 no --> 56.5% YES (+11.7%)<br /><br />Here's the first in a string of pro-equality vote shifts in the 12% range, all of which gave us no-to-yes flips. As with Salem, here in Wabash Valley we see that equality supporters held the 2009 "yes" vote count close to 2001-2 levels, while the "no" vote count dropped significantly.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >Detroit </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />2001-2 01-A: 102 yes, 111 no --> 47.9% YES<br />2009 08-B: 141 yes, 92 no --> 60.5% YES (+12.6%)<br /><br />Look at the total "yes" vote count in 2001-2 and then compare it to 2009 -- yes, that's nearly a 40% INCREASE in the total number of "yes" votes, while the anti-equality vote dropped. We should have the More Light supporters in Detroit presbytery teach us their get-out-the-vote techniques. Excellent job on the GOTV, Detroit folks.<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >LeHigh </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br />2001-2 01-A: 50 yes, 62 no --> 44.6% YES<br />2009 08-B: 60 yes, 46 no --> 56.6% YES (+12.0%)<br /><br />Similar to Detroit and almost as spectacular on the numbers, equality supporters in LeHigh push UP the total "yes" vote count by 20% (10 votes total) compared to 2001-2 while again, the anti-equality vote drops down. We end up with a 12% pro-equality shift, which is no easy task anywhere. In this case it was more than enough to make LeHigh another no-to-yes flip.<br /><br /><br />Many thanks to equality supporters particularly in Detroit and LeHigh presbyteries, who attended the presbytery meeting and voted even after the weekend announcement that 08-B has been defeated. Every vote matters, every possible presbytery no-to-yes flip is a big deal, and there are still several presbyteries yet to vote that could flip from "no" to "yes".<br /><br /><br /></span></div>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-75011952667170364152009-04-19T13:17:00.000-07:002009-04-19T13:36:01.828-07:0008-B wrapup, March 30 - April 19<span style="font-family:arial;">I took a few weeks away from doing these updates, since there weren't any votes scheduled through the Easter season, but now the 08-B votes are starting to happen again. Here's a recap of the few votes that happened in the late March to early April time window, plus a few more that happened recently.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This update covers all 08-B votes that I know of that took place from March 30 through April 19.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Yes votes: 3</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">No votes: 3</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">No-to-yes flips: 0 out of a target 1 (if we count South Louisiana as a target flip)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Previous "yes" presbyteries held at "yes": 3 out of 3</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Presbyteries shifting pro-equality: 1</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Presbyteries shifting anti-equality 3</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Nasty surprises: 0</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Amazingly positive surprises (unexpected flips): 0</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Annoyances: 3</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Bruce's rating for the past three weeks of votes: "No surprises"</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Fundamentally, the 6 votes of the past 3 weeks weren't very exciting: 3 previous "no" votes and 3 previous "yes" votes all voted the same way on 08-B this time around. The two areas of interest were San Jose Presbytery, which is traditionally hotly contested, and South Louisiana, where we had a long-shot opportunity to flip the presbytery from a previous "no" vote to a "yes" this year.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Several presbyteries fall into the "annoying" category this time around due to slight anti-LGBT percentage shifts, all of them at the 2-3% level. In Alaska and Long Island presbyteries this type of "probable statistical noise" doesn't matter quite as much, however in San Jose it does, since the votes in San Jose on LGBT equality overtures are traditionally fairly close. More on San Jose below, under its vote breakdown.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">You'll notice that I have no "slightly positive" or "successes" sections below this time, since these 6 votes really don't fall into those categories. If we had picked up a pro-LGBT percentage shift in Alaska or San Jose then I'd count those as "slightly positive", but since we had some backsliding, they get listed as "annoying".</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >ANNOYING</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Alaska</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 15 yes, 24 no --> 38.5% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 12 yes, 21 no --> 36.4% YES (-2.1%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">With total vote counts this low, it's hard to derive much meaning from a 3-vote decline for both the "yes" and "no" votes when we compare 2001-2 to 2009. Still, I'd prefer to see a pro-LGBT shift into the low-40% level support rather than the 2% decline down to 36% that we actually see.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Long Island</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 87 yes, 28 no --> 75.7% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 78 yes, 29 no --> 72.9% YES (-2.8%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Long Island isn't in any danger of flipping its vote to "no", so I'm not particularly bothered by a 2.8% anti-LGBT shift, however given that the "no" voters were able to increase their total by 1 vote when compared to the 2001-2 voting, it would have been nice to see the "yes" vote count for 2009 come in at the 2001-2 levels of 87 votes.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >San Jose</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 85 yes, 75 no --> 53.1% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 84 yes, 81 no --> 50.9% YES (-2.2%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I should note here that although I'm in San Jose presbytery, I didn't do the get-out-the-vote (GOTV) work for this presbytery -- that was handled here by a very dedicated team of LGBT equality supporters who did a large amount of phone calling and people-tracking well in advance of the presbytery meeting. I won't list names here since I don't know who wants to be mentioned and who would rather stay anonymous, however if you were at the More Light dinner at General Assembly in 2008, it's safe to say that you've likely met several members of this team. And it's good that they worked hard on the 08-B GOTV, since the anti-equality forces pulled out all the stops and increased their "no" vote count to 81 from the previous level of 75.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">San Jose presbytery is both an interesting and annoying exercise in swing-presbytery demographics. A lot of people look up the city on the map and assume, based on San Jose's rough proximity to San Francisco, that San Jose presbytery must be a regular shoo-in for "yes" votes on equality. The reality, of course, is that the presbytery extends WAY down south beyond San Jose, presumably adding plenty of what we might call "non-San Francisco demographic territory" along the way.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This year there were a few interesting wrinkles in the San Jose Presbytery 08-B voting process. As is often the case, the presbytery scheduled a "let's dialogue about this overture" event, which in past years was often held as part of the presbytery meeting at which the vote was taking. This year, however, the dialogue event was held a month prior to the vote, as a single-subject optional Saturday event which was not a presbytery meeting. The result was the usual for these sorts of non-mandatory events: 08-B supporters showed up in droves ready to dialogue and advocate for equality, and the anti-LGBT presbyterians stayed home. Perhaps others might like to take this as an object lesson in how NOT to conduct a discussion about LGBT equality issues. There's been a lot of naive conflict-resolution fluff in the PCUSA over at least the past 10 years which has fabricated a narrative something like this: "the problem is that LIBERALS and CONSERVATIVES disagree with each other, and all we need to do to resolve this problem is get them to SIT DOWN and TALK to each other. We SENSIBLE MODERATES, who are the ones who actually have our wits about us, will help them to REASON out their differences and reach a COMPROMISE, thus solving the problem." This false narrative ignores the real source of the problem, which is the prejudice (and prejudice, by definition, is not grounded in reason) that needs to be exorcised from the denomination. It ignores the fact that you don't compromise on core principles (q.v. Gandhi), and human equality is a Jesus-grounded core principle. The narrative also ignores the fact that the anti-LGBT faction of the denomination has a long tradition of filing church lawsuits against any LGBT person who dares to come out at these sorts of meetings. We might refer to that as the "bring an assault rifle to the negotiating table" school of regressive politics.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The other "interesting" development with the San Jose presbytery voting was the equalization rule applied to the Yes and No speakers prior to the vote at the meeting. The original speaking structure, agreed to in advance, was to cap the number of "yes" and the number of "no" speakers at 12 each, for a total of 24 speakers maximum. However at the actual presbytery meeting, the anti-08B side couldn't muster 12 speakers -- they could only come up with about 8 people willing to speak against. (I don't have this precise number, however the point of this anecdote holds regardless.) The yes-on-08B team was then forced to REDUCE its speaker count down from 12 speakers to a smaller matching number, in the interests of "fairness". Frankly, that process doesn't meet with my concept of "fair" -- it seems to me that if one side can't get its act together enough to assemble 12 speakers, then they should speak with the people they've got, and the team that did have its act together gets to play with a full team of 12.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So at the end of the day, to get back to the actual vote count, we end up with a 2% anti-LGBT shift, taking us down to a nailbiter 84 yes, 81 no vote. We any luck, we in the More Light contingent can draw the line in the sand at this point, since another 2% anti-LGBT shift will of course flip the presbytery into the "no" category. Such a yes-to-no flip would fundamentally be pretty stupid, since despite recent anti-marriage ballot measures in California, the state as a whole is shifting pro-LGBT.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >NEUTRAL</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Atlantic Korean-American</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 0 yes, 32 no --> 0% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 0 yes, 18 no --> 0% YES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Here's one of the several non-geographic Korean presbyteries doing its thing. These presbyteries pretty much always vote close to 100% anti-equality, so this vote is no surprise, though it is somewhat interesting to see that this was apparently a presbytery meeting with only 18 attendees.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Northern NY</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 42 yes, 19 no --> 68.9% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: Voice vote "yes"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Northern New York gets a "neutral" due to the voice vote, which means that we can't do any statistical comparisons. This is a "safe yes" presbytery, so there are no concerns here.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >South Louisiana</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 51 yes, 71 no --> 41.8% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 42 yes, 55 no --> 43.3% YES (+1.5%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">South Louisiana is an interesting problem in categorization. There was a team of people working very hard to try to get this presbytery to flip to "yes", so they might call this one "annoying" or "painful". On the other hand, the vote did shift +1.5% pro-LGBT, so maybe I should list it as "slightly positive". Here I decided to split the difference and let these two lines of thinking cancel each other out, so I've listed South Louisiana as "neutral". Every percentage point in the pro-LGBT direction moves us that much closer to flipping the presbytery to pro-equality in the future.</span>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-15591694139754148942009-03-29T12:57:00.000-07:002009-03-29T13:08:55.668-07:00Weekly 08-B wrapup, March 23-29<span style="font-family:arial;">Here's an 08-B vote wrapup for the week ending March 29 that includes all of the presbytery votes that I know about, March 23-29.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >SUMMARY FOR THE WEEK:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Yes votes: 11</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">No votes: 2</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">No-to-yes flips: 2 out of a target 2</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Previous "yes" presbyteries held at "yes": 8 out of 8</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Previous "no action" presbyteries converted to "yes": 1</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Presbyteries shifting pro-equality: 10</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Presbyteries shifting anti-equality 2</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Nasty surprises: 0</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Amazingly positive surprises (unexpected flips): 0</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Annoyances: 1 (Geneva)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Bruce's rating for the week: "Close to perfect"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">All of those past weeks of anti-LGBT presbyteries voting early and pro-LGBT presbyteries voting late are finally starting to equalize themselves, since of course eventually every presbytery needs to vote. The result is that this week we saw a large number of "likely yes" presbyteries vote, with all presbyteries that voted for equality in 2001-2 again voting for equality in 2009. The "anti-08B vote skew", i.e. the deceptively high presbytery vote count margin against 08-B, has dropped from 15 down to 6. So there's still a skew, it's just not as high right now.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This week was about as close as you can get to perfect execution for the More Light / equality movement. The two presbyteries that had a shot at flipping "no" to "yes" did in fact flip, the 8 presbyteries that we needed to hold at "yes" did hold, there were no yes-to-no flips, and the wildcard of Western New York presbytery, which took "no action" in 2001-2, came in at a "yes" vote. About the only thing I can flag this week as an issue of concern was some backsliding in Geneva presbytery -- see the numbers below.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I should probably again go through my "hope versus realism" discussion, since in this past week I again saw a post on a public More Light list from somebody who appeared to believe that 08-B is likely to pass. Naturally anything is possible until somebody gets 87 votes, however as I did last week, let's take a look at the updated numbers:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- Those who oppose 08-B need 6 more presbytery "no" votes to defeat it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- There are 7 presbyteries still to vote in what I call the "likely no" category, which means that they voted with less than 40% support for equality in 2001-2. Most of these are rock-solid high-guarantee "no" votes, barring the sudden Rapture of all the "no" voters up into the sky where they're unlikely to be able to make the presbytery meeting... however since we don't have the Rapture in reformed theology, I'm pretty much going to count that scenario out.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- There are 2 additional previous "voice vote no" presbyteries which haven't voted yet and are similarly very likely to vote "no" this year: Noroeste and Soroeste.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So you can do the math and pretty much determine the likely yes-to-no outcome for 08-B at this point. However as I did last week, I'd really like to stress that what matters is the PROGRESS TOWARDS THE GOAL -- it's important to make as much progress as possible this year, which means that every presbytery matters regardless of whether "yes" or "no" happens to have amassed 87 presbytery votes at the time. The More Light movement remains on target to meet the suggested goals that I proposed a week ago: at least 30 presbyteries flipped no-to-yes; total "no" votes kept under 100; zero yes-to-no flips; a 3:1 ratio of pro-equality vote shifts compared to anti-equality vote shifts; and a human vote count as close to 50-50 as possible.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Next I'll rapidly go through the individual vote numbers, categorized in the usual way as annoying, neutral, slightly positive, and successes.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >ANNOYING:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Geneva</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 65 yes, 35 no --> 65.0% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 44 yes, 29 no --> 60.3% YES (-4.7%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Geneva gets my one "annoying" label of the week due to the nearly 5% anti-equality shift from this "safe YES" presbytery. That steep drop from 65 "yes" voters in 2001-2 to 44 "yes" voters in 2009 doesn't look good. My hope is that this was simply due to turnout or get-out-the-vote issues this year. We need to take this example as an important warning to not get complacent in any presbytery. Your presbytery might traditionally vote pro-equality, but if you don't show up to vote, you could end up with a very nasty surprise.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >NEUTRAL:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Beaver-Butler</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: Voice vote "no"</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 21 yes, 92 no --> 18.6% YES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Beaver-Butler joins the ranks of those previous voice-vote-no presbyteries which this year counted the vote, and puts an initial stake in the ground at nearly 20% pro-equality support. Special thanks to the 21 equality supporters in Beaver-Butler, and here's to increasing your numbers over time!</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Boston</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 59 yes, 42 no --> 58.4% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 54 yes, 42 no --> 56.3% YES (-2.2%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Boston gets a "neutral" ranking from me due to the perhaps statistically insignificant downward slide in equality support. Again this isn't a trend that we want to see continue anywhere, where the "yes" votes lose 5 votes while the "no" vote count stays constant.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >SLIGHTLY POSITIVE</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Charleston-Atlantic</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 22 yes, 93 no --> 19% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 30 yes, 89 no --> 25% YES (+6%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Charleston-Atlantic, one of our "extremely likely no" presbyteries, as expected does come in with a "no" vote, but shifts 6% pro-equality, with supporters increasing their vote turnout by about 40% while the "no" voters lost votes compared to 2001-2.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >SUCCESSES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I wasn't entirely sure where to put all the presbyteries that previously voted "yes" and held that vote as a "yes" on 08-B -- do we call those "slightly positive" or a complete "success"? However since so many of the percentage vote shifts are comparably high (7% or above pro-equality shift), I've listed them here.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> First, however, are our one "no action to YES" shift and our two no-to-yes flips.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Western New York</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: "No action" --> implicit "no" vote</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 66 yes, 48 no --> 57.9% YES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Western New York to me was a wildcard -- I had no idea how it might vote this year due to the "no action" vote in 2001-2. It turns out that historically, this presbytery is fairly pro-equality, however it's great to see that come out in a solid "yes" vote at 58% pro-equality support this year.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Philadelphia</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 176 yes, 221 no --> 44% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 152 yes, 139 no --> 52% YES (+8%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Philadelphia was a "target to flip" presbytery, and I was concerned about how it would play out since it can be difficult to shift from the low-40% range up to a "yes" vote, but More Light supporters there won the day, coming in a with a full 8% pro-LGBT shift and flipping this presbytery from "no" to "yes". Very nicely done.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Grace</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 109 yes, 154 no --> 41.4% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 203 yes, 182 no --> 52.7% YES (+11.3%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Grace Presbytery shows us how it's done, coming out of "long shot to flip" territory at a previous 41% level of pro-equality support to jump up by 11% and flip from "no" to "yes". Take a look at the total "yes" vote counts -- it went from 109 votes in 2001-2 to 203 votes this year. It takes a lot of groundwork to do that kind of vote doubling at vote counts of over 100. Very nice job in Grace presbytery this year.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The next 6 presbyteries were all "HOLD" presbyteries, meaning that they had previously voted "yes" on equality and the hope would be that they'd again vote "yes". With the exception of Elizabeth, all of them were also what I'd consider "safe YES" presbyteries, since their previous level of equality support was 60% or above. (However see my previous warnings about complacency.)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">What's striking about all 6 of these presbyteries is the strong pro-equality shift, in most cases significantly above my rule of thumb of "1% per year". Here we see pro-LGBT vote shifts ranging from 7.6% in Western Reserve on up to a huge 18% pro-LGBT shift in Genesee Valley, although that appears to be primarily because the "no" vote completely collapsed. Many thanks to everybody in these presbyteries who worked to pass 08-B this year -- I'm sure that the national MLP board and staff feel good knowing that to a large extent, presbyteries considered to be "safe YES" usually do stay that way, so that MLP is able to put more resources into helping to move hearts, minds, and votes in swing and "seeking a miracle" presbyteries.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Western Reserve</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 131 yes, 73 no --> 64.2% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 107 yes, 42 no --> 71.8% YES (+7.6%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >New York City</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 61 yes, 31 no --> 66% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 76 yes, 25 no --> 75% YES (+9%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Elizabeth</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 80 yes, 68 no --> 54% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 91 yes, 53 no --> 63% YES (+9%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Susquehanna Valley</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 43 yes, 27 no --> 61.4% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 59 yes, 23 no --> 72.0% YES (+10.6%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Denver</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 115 yes, 69 no --> 62.5% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 114 yes, 40 no --> 74% YES (+11.5%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Genesee Valley</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 98 yes, 62 no --> 61.3% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 93 yes, 24 no --> 79.5% YES (+18.2%)</span>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-10334381976312443042009-03-23T10:29:00.000-07:002009-03-29T11:57:43.366-07:00Weekly vote wrapup - March 16-22<span style="font-family:arial;">Here's an 08-B vote wrapup for the week ending March 15 that includes all of the presbytery votes that I know about, March 16-22.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >SUMMARY FOR THE WEEK:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Yes votes: 5</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">No votes: 5</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">No-to-yes flips: 3 out of a target 3 (plus Mackinac as a 4th bonus flip)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Previous "yes" presbyteries held at "yes": 1</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Presbyteries shifting pro-equality: 8</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Presbyteries shifting anti-equality 2</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Nasty surprises: 0</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Amazingly positive surprises (unexpected flips): 1 (Mackinac)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Annoyances: 2 (Grand Canyon, Northumberland)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Bruce's rating for the week: "Better than expectations"</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">We saw 10 new presbytery votes come in over the past week. Perhaps the best way to encapsulate this week is to point out that in 2001-2, these presbyteries voted 9-1 against equality, but this year they split 5 yes, 5 no. This week we saw 3 "target yes flips" all successfully shift to "yes" votes, plus Mackinac came in as a long shot and shifted strongly pro-LGBT to similarly flip to "yes".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">We continue to see a trend of anti-LGBT presbyteries voting earlier than average, and pro-LGBT presbyteries voting later than average, which skews the total presbytery vote count by 15 votes towards the "no" side as of today. So for example, right now 90% of the "likely no" presbyteries have already voted, even though overall presbytery voting is only 75% complete.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I'm occasionally asked about the hope-vs-realism tradeoff re whether 08-B can pass this year. The reality, of course, is that it's always been a steep cliff to climb from day one: pro-equality Presbyterians need to flip 41 presbyteries from "no" to "yes" to pass 08-B. Given that a large number of presbyteries began at the rather tepid equality support level of 35% or less, flipping 41 presbyteries is extremely difficult. So to give the dose of reality for this week, let's point out the relevant numbers:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- Those who oppose 08-B need 8 more presbytery "no" votes to defeat it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- There are 8 presbyteries still to vote in what I call the "likely no" category, which means that they voted with less than 40% support for equality in 2001-2.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- There are 3 additional previous "voice vote no" presbyteries which haven't voted yet and are similarly very likely to vote "no" this year: Noroeste, Soroeste, and Beaver-Butler</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- Swing presbyteries have been flipping "no" to "yes" at about a 60% overall rate, not 100%. (This past week was somewhat unusual).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So based on those numbers, you should pretty much be able to draw your own conclusion. There's certainly a statistical possibility of anything happening, and we've definitely had some cases where wild miraculous things have happened, however the reality is that, as we might say, "the odds aren't in our favor".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">However, the other part of that reality is that it's crucial to scale as far up the cliff as we can, simply to demonstrate clearly that this is a marathon we know we're going to complete. So far, in terms of distance gained in the struggle, it's been almost total victory for equality and a complete rout for the other side. 23 presbyteries flipped pro-equality so far and ZERO flipped the other direction -- it's amazing. Those aren't numbers you want to see if you support the status quo.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So here are some targets and goals to watch for, when the dust settles:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- I want to see us flip at least 30 presbyteries total from "no" to "yes". We're at 23 today, we can get 7 more. This is very doable.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- Stretch goal: I want to see us flip at least 34 presbyteries. If we can do this and hold all previous "yes" votes, that should put us at 80 total presbytery "yes" votes, pushing us out of the 70's and into the 80's on the pro-equality vote count.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- I want to see the "no" vote count held under 100, so that the vote totals don't have that lopsided "over 100 versus some number less than 100" look to them. This should be a very achievable goal -- the anti-equality movement is going to run out of "easy no" votes long before they reach 100.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- I want to see ZERO presbyteries flip from "yes" to "no". We had one very close call this week, but so far we've managed to keep a perfect record here. This is something of a stretch goal, since you never know what can happen during a presbytery vote.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- I want to see the ratio of "presbyteries shifting pro-equality" to "presbyteries shifting anti-equality" to continue to hold at over 3 to 1. This is very doable.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- I want to see the total individual vote count (the human votes) for 08-B as close to 50% as possible. This is the concept of the human "popular vote" as compared to the "electoral vote" of the presbyteries. Right now this "popular vote" percentage is at 47%, but it would be great to see it shift a point or two closer to 50%. We might even be able to break above 50% in the popular vote, thus "winning the popular vote but losing the electoral vote", although that's a fairly tough stretch goal at this point.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">With that rather wordy set of suggested objectives out of the way, let's head into the presbytery-by-presbytery vote breakdown, categorized in the usual way as annoying, neutral, slightly positive, and successes.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >ANNOYING:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Grand Canyon</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 122 yes, 96 no --> 56% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 98 yes, 93 no --> 51% YES (-5%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Grand Canyon was the nailbiter of the week, a previous "yes" presbytery that shifted 5% ANTI-equality and almost flipped from yes to no. This vote should demonstrate that we can't take anything for granted. This presbytery will need some extra love and attention over the next while so that support for equality there continues to grow... and that the supporters attend the presbytery meeting to vote, please.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Northumberland</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 28 yes, 51 no --> 35.4% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 20 yes, 58 no --> 25.6% YES (-9.8%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Northumberland wasn't likely to shift from "no" to "yes", and it didn't, but it makes the "annoying" category this week due to its nearly 10% anti-equality vote shift. Given the small turnout numbers, percentage swings like this can be common. However in general, most of the presbyteries that started at 30%-or-higher levels of support have increased their support for equality, so it's annoying to see the shift down to under 30% this year.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >NEUTRAL</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Seattle</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 109 yes, 188 no --> 36.7% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 91 yes, 155 no --> 37.0% YES (+0.3%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Seattle presbytery has a history of heavy anti-LGBT mobilization for vote turnout at presbytery meetings, and they did the usual this year, holding Seattle to a statistically insignificant 0.3% pro-equality increase. The anti-equality forces there have also learned to use the "stifle the Spirit" tactic that I wrote about a few weeks ago as a way of suppressing potential "yes" swing votes. A note from an attendee present at the Seattle presbytery meeting mentions that:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> "Someone in authority insisted last night that none of the stoles</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> that women so diligently knitted could be passed out to supporting</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> members at Presbytery."</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Perhaps the appropriate response to the coward in Seattle presbytery who gave that order is "I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out." I double-dog dare Seattle presbytery to invite me the next time you're holding a vote on an LGBT-equality overture. I'll be happy to drive up with a car full of rainbow stoles and hand them out until you throw me out. I'm sure that will make you look SO much better to the broader Seattle and University of Washington communities. Did we mention that the University of Washington prohibits discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation, and the city of Seattle requires its contractors to provide equal benefits for both spouses and domestic partners? It might be nice if local churches could lead the way on human equality instead of telling supporters to Shut Up.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >SLIGHTLY POSITIVE</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Here we have our usual lineup of presbyteries that didn't vote "yes", but did shift significantly pro-equality. All of these are good news.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Abingdon</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: Voice vote "no"</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 29 yes, 41 no --> 41% YES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Technically it's not possible to tell which direction this vote is shifting, but realistically when a "voice vote no" presbytery suddenly comes in at 41% YES support, that's huge. It's really nice to see this initial stake put in the ground at 41% rather than something like, say, 25% pro-equality support.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Olympia</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 32 yes, 110 no --> 22.5% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 44 yes, 98 no --> 31% YES (+8.5%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Redstone</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 33 yes, 85 no --> 28% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 46 yes, 75 no --> 38% YES (+10%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Both Olympia and Redstone come in with strong shifts from the 20's into the 30's with their pro-equality support. A few more iterations and they'll be voting yes. :-) The Spirit won't give you up, friends.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >SUCCESSES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">These are all fun, it's the four no-to-yes flips this week.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >West Jersey</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 80 yes, 83 no --> 49.1% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 88 yes, 80 no --> 52.4% YES (+3.3%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">West Jersey was in the category of "should be easy flip", and thankfully it did start out in the easy category, since a 3% pro-equality support shift isn't very much in the scheme of things. Thankfully, 3% was enough. Now let's see if we can push that up to the high 50's.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >West Virginia</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 92 yes, 114 no --> 44.7% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 93 yes, 56 no --> 62.4% YES (+17.8%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">West Virginia was another "target to flip" presbytery, and here we got a strong pro-equality shift, mostly due to a 50% collapse in the anti-equality vote turnout compared to 2001-2 (114 votes dropped down to 56 votes). It would be great to also see the pro-equality vote count climb a bit more than 1 vote. However in general, presbytery turnouts are declining along with the decline in size of the PCUSA, so even holding steady at a previous vote count is a success.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Newark</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 34 yes, 40 no --> 46% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 42 yes, 8 no --> 84% YES (+38%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Newark was something of a stunner, not in the sense that it flipped "no" to "yes", but in the sense that it shifted so heavily. I had to ask for confirmation when that 42-8 vote count was emailed to me. Newark now holds the high-water mark for "largest pro-equality percentage vote shift" within presbyteries that took an official counted vote on 08-B. With that "no" vote count shifting from 40 down to 8 voters, it looks like the anti-equality voters pretty much stayed home.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Mackinac</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 25 yes, 39 no --> 39% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 44 yes, 32 no --> 58% YES (+19%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">We round out the wrapup here with our "amazingly positive surprise" for the week, with Mackinac coming from a 39% level of previous pro-equality support to shift nearly 20% into a strong "yes" vote, and a significant increase in the total number of "yes" voters as well. Great job to everybody in Mackinac presbytery working for equality.</span>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-38495416213570717602009-03-15T17:47:00.000-07:002009-03-15T17:52:41.243-07:00Weekly 08-B voting wrapup<span style="font-family:arial;">Here's an 08-B vote wrapup for the week ending March 15 that includes all of the presbytery votes that I know about, March 8-15.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">There seems to be a general correlation between the total "no" vote count and the anxiety level of the More Light community, however my thought would be that people should in general take this round of voting like any other: as an opportunity to win hearts and minds for equality. This isn't the first such opportunity to have a conversation, and it won't be the last. If 08-B doesn't pass this time around, it will pass eventually. And if 08-B does pass this time around, the Presbyterian equality movement isn't going anywhere -- there will be more conversations to have over more years, about marriage equality, about adding non-discrimination language to the Book of Order, about diversity/inclusion/empowerment, and so on.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >SUMMARY FOR THE WEEK:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Yes votes: 7</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">No votes: 8</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">No-to-yes flips: 1 out of a target 1</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Previous "yes" presbyteries held at "yes": 5</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Presbyteries shifting pro-equality: 11</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Presbyteries shifting anti-equality 3 (of which 2 are statistical noise)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Nasty surprises: 0</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Amazingly positive surprises (unexpected flips): 1 (Transylvania)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Annoyances: 2 (Nevada, Pittsburgh)</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This was a good week -- we held all presbyteries that previously voted pro-equality, we flipped one presbytery (Eastminster) that was a likely flip, plus an additional presbytery (Transylvania) flipped that I wouldn't have expected. We also shifted from unanimous-no to not-unanimous-no in Hanmi, a transition that we should call out and celebrate.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">As I mentioned in a <a href="http://yeson08b.blogspot.com/2009/03/total-08-b-vote-count-is-heavily-skewed.html">previous post</a> (March 14), the current presbytery vote counts are heavily skewed towards "no" due to early voting by anti-LGBT presbyteries and late voting by pro-LGBT presbyteries. We might start to see this skew diminish a bit over the next few weeks, simply because we're starting to run out of "likely no" presbyteries. However there are still over a dozen of them, so we should expect to see plenty of additional "no" votes over time.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Now here are the presbytery vote counts and percentages, for those who like to dive into the numbers. I've got these categorized as annoyances, neutral, slightly positive, and successes, since those categories have been working OK for me so far.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >ANNOYANCES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Pittsburgh</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 137 yes, 277 no --> 33.1% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 105 yes, 206 no --> 33.8% YES (+0.7%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I wouldn't have expected Pittsburgh to vote in favor of 08-B, and they didn't, so they're only in the "annoyance" category because of the statistically insignificant pro-equality shift. We've seen many other presbyteries in the 30% pro-equality support range shift quite a lot towards equality, so in my ideal world I would have liked to have seen a 7 or 8% pro-LGBT shift.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Nevada</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 20 yes, 41 no --> 32.8% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 13 yes, 59 no --> 18.1% YES (-14.7%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Nevada was the only presbytery in this week's wrapup to have a significant anti-equality shift. Given the low total vote count, it's easy to have this sort of large percentage shift, however we really should have been able to manage at least something in the high 30% range for 08-B support. However the presbytery isn't one that I would have expected to vote "yes", so there's not an expected presbytery "yes" vote here that was lost.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >NEUTRAL</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Here in the "neutral" category are two safe-yes presbyteries that had statistically insignificant anti-equality shifts, plus San Juan which again chose to take a voice "no" vote, as they did in 2001-2. It's not possible to determine which way San Juan presbytery is trending if they keep taking voice votes.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Northern New England</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 75 yes, 40 no --> 65.2% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 56 yes, 30 no --> 65.1% YES (-0.1%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >New Brunswick</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 113 yes, 50 no --> 69.3% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 95 yes, 44 no --> 68.3% YES (-1%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >San Juan</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: voice - no</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: voice - no</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >SLIGHTLY POSITIVE</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Here in the "slightly positive" section we have a mixture of presbyteries that voted "no" but had pro-equality voting trends, and of presbyteries that held at "yes".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Hanmi</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 0 yes, 70 no --> 0% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 1 yes, 30 no --> 3.2% YES (+3.2%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Congratulations to Hanmi for shifting out of the "unanimous no" category, and special thanks to the single unknown voter who made this possible. Perhaps this is the beginning of a longer-term pro-equality trend in Hanmi presbytery. The moment that a deliberative body shifts from "all of the same mind" to "some people have a different opinion", it opens up new opportunities for conversations.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >San Gabriel</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 97 yes, 181 no --> 35% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 79 yes, 136 no --> 37% YES (+2%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Perhaps I should list San Gabriel under the "annoyances" section since it's still a rather small percentage pro-equality shift, but I figure I'll run with it and call it a "slight positive".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Providence</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 38 yes, 63 no --> 37.6% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 39 yes, 48 no --> 44.8% YES (+7.2%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Providence now moves out of "likely no" into the "target to flip" category.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Twin Cities</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 197 yes, 112 no --> 64% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 138 yes, 54 no --> 72% YES (+8%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Lake Michigan</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 92 yes, 59 no --> 61% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 94 yes, 42 no --> 69% YES (+8%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Both Twin Cities and Lake Michigan hold at safe-for-equality status and increase their yes votes by 8%. Nicely done.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Muskingum Valley</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 51 yes, 117 no --> 30.4% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 44 yes, 70 no --> 38.6% YES (+8.2%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Muskingum Valley shows us how presbyteries in the low-30% support range can shift more than 1% (Pittsburgh) or 2% (San Gabriel).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Cascades</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 179 yes, 112 no --> 61.5% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 150 yes, 48 no --> 75.8% YES (+14.2%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Cascades joins the ranks of numerous pro-equality presbyteries in demonstrating that you can keep moving up in support, sometimes significantly.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >SUCCESSES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Riverside</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 18 yes, 94 no --> 16% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 42 yes, 53 no --> 44% YES (+28%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Riverside is another example of how strong anti-equality presbyteries can make big pro-equality shifts partly because there's a long distance to go. 28% is a huge shift and, amazingly, moves Riverside from "extremely LGBT-hostile" into "target to flip". The anti-gay contingent of the PCUSA can't be very happy about this particular vote.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Eastminster</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 54 yes, 65 no --> 45.4% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 60 yes, 39 no --> 60.6% YES (+15.2%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Eastminster was a candidate to flip from "no" to "yes" this year, and it did, strongly so with a 15% shift. This is excellent news.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Transylvania</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 50 yes, 80 no --> 37.6% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 83 yes, 61 no --> 57.6% YES (+20%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And rounding out the week in review we have our "amazingly positive surprise" for the week in Transylvania, starting from a high-30% level of pro-equality support and shifting a full 20% to become an unexpected no-to-yes flip. The Transylvania vote totals of 2009 are almost the reverse of the vote count for 2001-2. Many thanks to all of the LGBT equality supporters and voters in Transylvania -- this was a particularly nice piece of news to hear during the past week.</span>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-5388057904431041712009-03-14T16:44:00.000-07:002009-03-15T16:47:23.027-07:00Total 08-B vote count is heavily skewed by late and early presbytery voting<span style="font-family:arial;">I've been taking a look at the voting patterns on 08-B so far, and a few</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> days ago noticed that it appeared that there were a large number of</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> "safe for equality" presbyteries that hadn't voted on 08-B yet. A quick</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> analysis confirmed that this was true, but I didn't fully run the numbers.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So today I finally got around to adding a separate analysis section to</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> the bottom of the <a href="http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pz4ZcEBLpqZuM9uHsVdKKWw">tracking spreadsheet</a> linked from this blog. </span><span style="font-family:arial;"> It's down there in the section that says</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> "Late voting competitive disadvantage / early voting competitive</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> advantage analysis".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The results are striking. They show a consistent pattern of likely</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> anti-LGBT presbyteries voting early, and pro-LGBT presbyteries voting</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> late. These vote scheduling disparities heavily skew the current</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> presbytery vote count (which, as I've suggested earlier, isn't the</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> critical number to watch -- what I care about are the voting percentage</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> TRENDS) towards "no".</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Here's a summary, and the full set of numbers are in the <a href="http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pz4ZcEBLpqZuM9uHsVdKKWw">spreadsheet</a>.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- So far, 2/3 (67%) of all presbyteries have voted.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- BUT, out of 36 "likely yes" presbyteries, only 53% have voted.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- This causes a 5-vote "yes" disadvantage compared to what we'd see if</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> these presbyteries were scheduling their votes at an average rate,</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> i.e. if 67% had already voted.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">But wait, there's more...</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- Also, out of 77 "likely no" presbyteries, 82% (!) have already voted.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"><br />-- This causes an 11-vote "no" advantage compared to what we'd see if</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> these presbyteries were scheduling their votes at an average rate of</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> 67%.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">In other words:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- Anti-LGBT presbyteries are voting early.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- Pro-LGBT presbyteries are voting late.</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- The result (as of right now) is a 16-vote skew towards "no".</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-- This is why the current presbytery vote totals look so lopsided.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Of course, the goal of this marathon (not a sprint, it's a marathon) is</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> to shift hearts and minds over time, and the best indicator that we have</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> of that are the percentage vote trends over time.</span>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-73455604256209758202009-03-08T17:40:00.000-07:002009-03-08T17:42:49.484-07:00Weekly 08-B vote wrapup (March 1-7)<span style="font-family:arial;">OK, here we go with another weekly 08-B vote wrapup. The presbytery individual voting breakdowns and percentage shifts are later below. </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >SUMMARY FOR THE WEEK</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> (March 1-7):</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Yes votes: 3 (was 1 in 2001-2)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">No votes: 9 (was 11 in 2001-2)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Ties: 2 (ties count as "no" and are included in the 9 above.)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">No-to-yes flips: 1 out of a target 3</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Previous "yes" presbyteries held at "yes": 1 out of 1</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Presbyteries shifting pro-equality: 10</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Presbyteries shifting anti-equality: 1</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Nasty surprises: 0</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Amazingly positive surprises (unexpected flips): 1</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Annoyances: 2 (North Central Iowa, Mission)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Bruce's ranking of the week: "Mostly as predicted, with increasing tie votes"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This week's votes on 08-B came in mostly as an educated guess would predict, however there were a few interesting wrinkles along the way. The presbytery vote lineup for the past week consisted of 6 expected solid "no" votes, 2 more likely "no" votes, 3 candidates for no-to-yes vote flips, and 1 expected "yes" vote. As it turned out, 2 of the 3 candidate no-to-yes presbyteries (Mission and North Central Iowa Presbyteries) did NOT flip, but we picked up an unexpected no-to-yes flip from Whitewater Valley.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">My definition of an ideal week would have been 4 yes votes, however that was definitely a stretch goal, since it required flipping two presbyteries with previous 41% pro-equality voting records (North Central Iowa and Mission). A complete blowout miracle week would have been 6 yes votes, which would have required two long-shot presbyteries to also flip pro-equality. Overall, 3 presbytery "yes" votes for the week isn't too bad, and it's 2 more than 2001-2, so as always the overall trend is in favor of equality.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This past week we've also seen The Return Of The Tie Vote, now with twice as many tie votes as before. Previously we had a tie vote from Cincinnati presbytery, and this week we saw both Central Nebraska and Mission presbyteries reach that "just one vote short" threshold of a tie, which unfortunately counts as a "no" for the presbytery. However I'm happy to claim at least 1.5 moral victory "yes" votes from the 3 ties that have happened so far. As with Cincinnati, the lesson here really is that every last vote can matter -- so if you're a voter who is thinking about skipping your presbytery meeting on the voting day for 08-B, please don't.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">One important trend this week is that presbyteries shifting pro-equality in their vote percentages totally overwhelmed presbyteries shifting anti-equality. Only North Central Iowa shifted anti-LGBT in its vote this week, and the overall ratio of pro-LGBT-vote-shift to anti-LGBT-vote-shift presbyteries is now well above 3 to 1. To me, these voting percentage shifts are more important to track than the total presbytery vote count, since the shifts tell us where the PCUSA is headed ideologically. It's extremely clear at this point that we have a very strong pro-equality voting trend within the denomination. Regardless of how the final presbytery vote tally comes out on 08-B, it's now obvious that G6.0106b is going to be out of the denomination's constitution within the next few years.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So with that overview out of the way, let's go to the vote-by-vote breakdowns and comments.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >ANNOYANCES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >North Central Iowa</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 46 yes, 65 no --> 41.4% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 31 yes, 60 no --> 34.1% YES (-7.4%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">North Central Iowa ends up on my "most annoying" list this week since it was a target presbytery to flip from no to yes, however instead we ended up with about a 7% ANTI-equality shift. This sort of anti-LGBT trend is highly unusual for a presbytery in the 40% pro-equality support range, so possibly this may have simply been a get-out-the-vote issue for yes-on-08B supporters.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Mission</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 164 yes, 235 no --> 41.1% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 181 yes, 181 no --> 50.0% YES (+8.9%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Mission was another target "no-to-yes flip" presbytery, and isn't as annoying as North Central Iowa since it did shift significantly pro-equality. However a tie vote is almost always annoying, so I'll list it here. You could also make a credible argument that Mission should go into the "slightly positive" list below.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >NEUTRAL</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Eastern Korean</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 0 yes, 48 no --> 0% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 0 yes, 55 no --> 0% YES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I'm not sure what to say about Eastern Korean other than that with those voting patterns, they're certainly consistent. You do have to figure that since God has created roughly 3% of the population as gay, many of the voters in this presbytery are voting against equality for their own children, quite possibly without even knowing it. It's kind of sad to think about it that way. It will be a day to celebrate when we see the first non-unanimous vote from this presbytery.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >SLIGHTLY POSITIVE</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">It may seem strange that here I have a long string of "no" presbytery votes all listed in the "slightly positive" category, however they're all pro-equality voting shifts, some of them fairly significant. Central Nebraska even came up out of the high-30% pro-equality support level and almost became a surprise no-to-yes flip, however the vote ended up as a tie.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I have these listed in order of increasing percentage vote shift.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Holston</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 22 yes, 74 no --> 22.9% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 24 yes, 68 no --> 26.1% YES (+3.2%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Trinity</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 42 yes, 114 no --> 26.9% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 48 yes, 106 no --> 31.2% YES (+4.2%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Coastal Carolina </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 95 yes, 286 no --> 25% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 110 yes, 205 no --> 35% YES (+10%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Central Nebraska</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 24 yes, 39 no --> 38.1% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 21 yes, 21 no --> 50.0% YES (+11.9%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This vote shift from Central Nebraska obviously shifts it into the category of "strong target no-to-yes shift" if there needs to be a next time.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >South Dakota</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 22 yes, 66 no --> 25% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 32 yes, 48 no --> 40% YES (+15%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Similar to the voting in Central Nebraska, this large pro-equality swing of 15% from South Dakota shifts it from what we'd call "Seeking A Miracle" status to "long-shot target to flip pro-equality" if there needs to be a next time.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >SUCCESSES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Heartland</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 150 yes, 139 no --> 51.9% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 127 yes, 90 no --> 58.5% YES (+6.6%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Heartland was a "hold" presbytery, which means that it had previously voted pro-equality and we wanted to keep it that way. That was successful, and with a solid 6.6% pro-LGBT shift.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >John Calvin</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 16 yes, 76 no --> 17.4% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 33 yes, 55 no --> 37.5% YES (+20.1%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Here's another presbytery "no" vote, however look at that pro-equality shift of over 20%. Supporters doubled the number of "yes" voters, while the "no" side lost 21 votes. That's a very positive shift towards equality.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Whitewater Valley</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 95 yes, 150 no --> 38.8% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 108 yes, 106 no --> 50.5% YES (+11.7%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Whitewater Valley was a "very long shot to flip" presbytery, and in fact did flip this year from "no" to "yes". This was our "amazingly positive surprise" Presbytery for the week. Many thanks to everybody working in this presbytery for equality.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Yellowstone</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2001-2 01-A: 29 yes, 37 no --> 44% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">2009 08-B: 25 yes, 23 no --> 52% YES (+8%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Yellowstone was another target presbytery to flip from "no" to "yes", and here it was successful. As with Whitewater Valley, a change of a single "yes" vote to "no" would have made this into a tie this year, which would have counted as a "no". (Did I mention yet that every vote counts?)</span>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-382759205078112532009-03-01T16:40:00.000-08:002009-03-01T16:45:10.843-08:00Weekly 08-B vote wrapup: the anti-equality deck-stacking begins<span style="font-family:arial;">This wrapup has a combination of statistics, comments, and advisories. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">As I noted a few weeks back, there are a significant number of presbyteries with strong anti-equality voting records. The 13 presbytery votes over the past week included 10 of these "likely no" presbyteries, so the vote totals this week are very lopsided towards "no" votes.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The big news this week is that the 15 no-to-yes presbytery vote flips of the previous several weeks have both frightened and motivated the anti-LGBT forces within the denomination. We're now starting to see an increase in anti-08B activity at the presbytery level, including the use of antidemocratic tactics such as suppressing presbytery meeting discussion of 08-B. The largest disappointment this week was in Indian Nations, a target no-to-yes swing presbytery, where the anti-08B side successfully used debate-suppression and was able to nudge the "yes" vote just under 50%. Had 08-B been given a fair and open discussion from Presbytery floor, as is generally required by Presbyterian polity, Indian Nations very likely would have voted "yes" on 08-B.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I should be clear about the impact of what we've learned from the past week. If you're in a presbytery which has a good chance of a vote flip this year, <span style="font-weight: bold;">YOUR PRESBYTERY IS A TARGET FOR VOTING PROCESS ABUSE</span> during your presbytery meeting. You should do what you can both before and during your presbytery meeting to ensure that 08-B is given a fair, deliberative discussion and a fair vote. If you feel that the process isn't fair, at the very least please make some noise about it, under the "sunlight is the best disinfectant" principle.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Here are some popular tactics that can be used by anti-equality groups to game the voting system so that pro-equality overtures have a reduced probability of success at the presbytery level:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> - "<span style="font-style: italic;">Stifle the Spirit</span>" tactic: Don't allow discussion of the equality overture, just go directly to a vote. Variation: schedule only a token time interval for discussion.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> - "<span style="font-style: italic;">Public intimidation</span>" tactic: Don't use secret ballots -- make people stand up in the middle of presbytery meeting to have their vote counted. Works particularly well in presbyteries with a strong majority on either side.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> - "<span style="font-style: italic;">Endurance test</span>" tactic: Schedule the vote on the overture at the end of a 7-hour meeting so that younger voters with kids at home have to leave before the vote.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> - "<span style="font-style: italic;">Consent calendar</span>" tactic: Put a "no" vote on the overture onto the consent calendar to try to sneak it through. Even if pro-equality supporters catch this trick, they then have to go through procedural hoops on the floor of presbytery to get the item removed from the consent calendar.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This is just my off-the-cuff list -- I'm confident that there are other tactics that can be, and have been, used to create an unfair context for voting.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">______________________________________</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">With those preliminaries and warnings out of the way, let's go into the summary and the vote-by-vote comments.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">SUMMARY FOR THE WEEK</span> (Feb. 23-28):</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Yes votes: 2</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">No votes: 11</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">No-to-yes flips: 0 out of a target 1</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Previous "yes" presbyteries held at "yes": 2 out of 2</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Presbyteries shifting pro-equality: 8</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Presbyteries shifting anti-equality: 2</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Nasty surprises: 1 (Indian Nations)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Amazingly positive surprises (unexpected flips): 0</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Annoyances: 1 (Missouri Union)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Bruce's ranking of the week: "stormy with anti-gay pushback"</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Roughly in order of neutral, then annoying, then good news, here are the recent votes that I'm aware of:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">1. PREVIOUS VOICE-VOTE PRESBYTERIES</span>:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Cherokee</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: Voice vote "no"</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 24 yes, 79 no --> 23% YES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Shenango</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: Voice vote "no"</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 4 yes, 101 no --> 4% YES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >New Harmony</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: Voice vote "no"</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 20 yes, 99 no --> 16.8% YES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">All three of these presbyteries took voice "no" votes on 01-A back in 2001-2, so there are no voting percentages from those years to compare for a vote shift. These three "no" votes suggest that the initial trend -- in which half of the previous voice-vote-no presbyteries flipped to "yes" -- was probably an outlier. The most likely pattern for the remaining prior-voice-vote-no presbyteries is that we'll see most or all of them come in with "no" votes.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The Shenango vote was originally reported elsewhere as 4 yes, 191 no, which is incorrect. My correspondence with the Stated Clerk got a corrected number of 4 yes, 101 no, and a process note that the vote was taken by asking people to stand up in the middle of presbytery meeting to have their "yes" or "no" vote counted. Presumably they did one set of people standing for "no" and then took a headcount, and then another set of people standing for "yes" and took a headcount. This is a nice example of the "public intimidation" voting tactic that I mention above. Not necessarily intentional on the part of the vote-takers, but probably effective at reducing the "yes" vote count regardless of intent.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I really want to call out here for thanksgiving the four people in Shenango who had the courage to stand up to be counted "yes" on 08-B this year. We don't know your names, we don't know who you are, but you're all heroes. It would have been so easy, in the midst of what was already known to be a lopsided presbytery no-on-08B vote, to simply stay seated, anonymous, and safe. If Peter can get away with it in Matthew 26:69-74, why not us, 2000 years later? But you didn't -- you ensured that it wasn't a 101-to-zero "no" vote, it was 101-4. The light shines in the darkness in Shenango! Four people potentially put their careers within Shenango Presbytery at risk by standing for equality this week. What will the rest of us do to stand for equality they way they did?</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >2. MOST ANNOYING</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Indian Nations</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 52 yes, 52 no --> 50.0% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 38 yes, 43 no --> 46.9% YES (-3.1%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">What should have been a no-to-yes flip this year turned into a 3% anti-equality shift due to the use of the "stifle the Spirit" tactic used during the presbytery meeting. Thanks for reminding us that you don't play fair, anti-08B people. Your use of this tactic suggests that you don't feel that your arguments can stand the sunlight of open discussion, as mandated by Presbyterian polity. If you think that the PCUSA should discriminate against gay people, at least have the guts to stand up in your presbytery meeting and say so. Cowards.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Missouri Union</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 34 yes, 46 no --> 42.5% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 31 yes, 48 no --> 39.2% YES (-3.3%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Bucking the trend of "if it's over 30% in the past, it will probably shift pro-LGBT" was Missouri Union, with a perhaps statistically insignificant 3% anti-equality shift. This presbytery was a long shot to flip from no to yes this year, but instead it's hovering around that 40% mark. It would have been nice to see a 5% to 7% pro-equality shift, so this one counts as "annoying".</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >3. SLIGHTLY POSITIVE</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Here we have a series of "no" votes, so you might be wondering why I list these in the "slightly positive" category. The reason, of course, is the voting percent shifts. In every case it was a pro-equality shift, even in some heavily anti-equality presbyteries that we might expect to trend anti-equality.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >North Puget Sound</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 39 yes, 73 no --> 35% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 42 yes, 69 no --> 38% YES (+3%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Northeast Georgia</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 44 yes, 101 no --> 30.3% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 49 yes, 89 no --> 35.5% YES (+5.2%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Yukon</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 12 yes, 40 no --> 23.1% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 17 yes, 42 no --> 28.8% YES (+5.7%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Tampa Bay</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 63 yes, 142 no --> 30.7% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 71 yes, 105 no --> 40.3% YES (+9.6%)</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >4. SUCCESSES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Hudson River</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 103 yes, 28 no --> 79% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 94 YES, 12 no --> 89% YES (+10%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Another "safe yes vote" presbytery comes in with a 10% pro-equality shift, similar to what we've seen earlier in (for example) Chicago, Redwoods, and Sante Fe presbyteries. We haven't had any presbytery break the 90% support barrier yet, but Hudson River is certainly close.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Milwaukee</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 68 yes, 35 no --> 66% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 86 yes, 24 no --> 78% YES (+12%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">And still another >10% pro-equality shift from a "safe yes" presbytery. Nice job in Milwaukee bringing out the pro-equality vote.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Peace River</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 37 yes, 105 no --> 26.1% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 63 yes, 82 no --> 43.4% YES (+17.4%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The winner of the pro-equality shift award for the week is Peace river, which shifts from "strongly anti-equality" to "target swing presbytery if there needs to be a next time". There were both significant numerical increases in the yes vote, and decreases in the no vote -- the best scenario. And a 17% pro-equality shift is huge -- this is a good success story for the week.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >South Alabama</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 18 yes, 49 no --> 26.9% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 24 yes, 33 no --> 42.1% YES (+15.2%)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Nipping at the heels of Peace River for the pro-equality shift award this week is South Alabama. As with Peace River, here we see a presbytery with a voting history of mid-20% pro-equality suddenly jump into the low-40% range. +15% is an amazing jump in support, and as with Peace River moves this presbytery out of the category "strongly anti-equality" into the category of "target to flip pro-equality".</span>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-91491856467670865112009-02-23T17:08:00.000-08:002009-02-23T17:12:09.607-08:00Feb. 21 presbytery vote wrapup and comments<span style="font-family:arial;">I finally received the John Knox vote count yesterday, so here's how the weekend voting shaped up, with comments.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >High-level view of Saturday 2/21 votes: </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Yes votes: 9 </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> No votes: 6 </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> No-to-yes flips: 4 out of a target 5 </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Previous "yes" presbyteries held at "yes": 5 out of 5 </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Nasty surprises: 0 </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Amazingly positive surprises (e.g. unexpected flips): 0 </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Annoyances: 4 </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Bruce's ranking of the weekend: "sunny with occasional clouds" </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >High-level view of everything so far: </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Presbyteries shifted pro-equality: 60 </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Presbyteries shifted anti-equality: 19 </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Ratio of pro-equality to anti-equality presbytery shift: 3 to 1 (!) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Total no-to-yes flips: 15 </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Total yes-to-no flips: 0 (!) </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Total "almost flipped" no-to-yes: 4 (voted "no", but very close) </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Total no-to-yes flips required to pass 08-B: 41 (not an easy goal) </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Percentage of total voting process complete: about 45% </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">There were no huge surprises this weekend in either direction. There were some disappointments, which I'll flag below, but nothing shocking. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">In order from most annoying to most positive, let's take a look. </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >1. MOST ANNOYING</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Tropical Florida </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 55 yes, 116 no --> 32.2% YES </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 21 yes, 93 no --> 18.4% YES (-13.7%) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Winning the "most annoying" award for the weekend is Tropical Florida, which shifted nearly 14% anti-equality this year compared to previous voting. I wasn't expecting 08-B to pass Tropical Florida this year, but we should have been able to shift the "yes" percentage up a bit this year instead of losing 14%. This looks to me somewhat like a turnout issue on the pro-equality side, which lost over half of the votes received in 2001-2. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Lake Erie </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 37 yes, 65 no --> 36.3% YES </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 32 yes, 58 no --> 35.6% YES (-0.7%) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Lake Erie and The James (below) tie for the category of "annoying because I wanted to see 40% support". Here in Lake Erie we see just under a 1% anti-equality shift, which is basically within statistical noise. We should be able to do better than "no movement" here. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >The James </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 130 yes, 190 no --> 40.6% YES </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 125 yes, 192 no --> 39.4% YES (-1.2%) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">As with Lake Erie, here we see about a 1% anti-equality shift, and this from a presbytery that came in above 40% support 7 years ago. It should be possible to move this presbytery pro-equality, so maybe we should all send them some love, or a PFLAG chapter or something. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Homestead </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 46 yes, 62 no --> 42.6% YES </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 37 yes, 40 no --> 48.1% YES (+5.5%) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Here we have the "close but no banana" situation for the weekend. Although we have a decent 5.5% pro-equality shift, we fell just 4 votes short of winning here. This was the one serious target "FLIP" presbytery that didn't flip. However, it's that much closer to a pro-equality vote if there needs to be a next time. </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >2. SLIGHTLY POSITIVE </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >North Alabama </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: Voice vote no --> no percentage available </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 30 yes, 47 no --> 38.5% YES </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">We don't know what the vote might have looked like in 2001-2 had it been counted, but I'll take a starting point of almost 39% pro-equality support in Alabama any day. Given this starting level of support, we should be able to shift North Alabama more pro-equality over time. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Sacramento </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 69 yes, 109 no --> 38.8% YES </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 65 yes, 75 no --> 46.4% YES (+7.7%) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This is nearly an 8% pro-equality shift, which is good, though we're not quite there. Sacramento now moves from "long shot" into the "target flip" range. </span><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >3. SOLID SUCCESSES </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Greater Atlanta </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 235 yes, 283 no --> 45.4% YES </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 243 yes, 233 no --> 51.1% YES (+5.7%) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">For me this was a nailbiter, but the More Light supporters here came through great, shifting the vote by nearly 6% to get a 10-vote victory. Greater Atlanta flips from "no" to "yes". The next step is to continue work in this presbytery to strengthen the current level of pro-equality support. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >New Hope </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 153 yes, 159 no --> 49% YES </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 177 yes, 139 no --> 56% YES (+7%) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">New Hope was a "should be easy FLIP" presbytery given its previous vote breakdown, and that turned out to be correct, with a 7% pro-equality shift. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Ohio Valley </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 74 yes, 90 no --> 45.1% YES </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 57 yes, 44 no --> 56.4% YES (+11.3%) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Another successful no-to-yes flip. There was some initial mis-reporting of the vote count, but I'm told that I have it correct now. The pro-equality shift, now at over 11%, is larger than originally reported. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Santa Fe </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 108 yes, 42 no --> 72% YES </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 110 yes, 23 no --> 83% YES (+11%) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">I love these safe-yes presbyteries that demonstrate that even when you're at 72% support, you can still shift another 11% pro-equality and break above 80%. That's not always easy. To 90% and beyond! </span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >4. MAJOR SUCCESSES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Arkansas </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 92 yes, 96 no --> 48.9% YES </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 116 yes, 64 no --> 64.4% YES (+15.5%) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Arkansas was another successful no-to-yes flip, plus it shifted nearly 16% pro-equality, which is great. Arkansas here shifts categories from "target FLIP" to "likely safe pro-equality". </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Eastern Oregon </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 17 yes, 14 no --> 54.8% YES </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 22 yes, 6 no --> 78.6% YES (+23.7%) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This was one of 5 "HOLD" presbyteries that we successfully held as pro-equality. The total vote count here is low so the percentages are much more susceptible to statistical noise, however a nearly 24% pro-equality shift in 7 years is very rare, and great news. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Giddings-Lovejoy </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 115 yes, 106 no --> 52% YES </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 125 yes, 53 no --> 70% YES (+18%) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This was another nailbiter "will we hold it?" presbytery which delivered with an amazing 18% pro-equality shift. The presbytery shifts categories from "nailbiter HOLD" to "likely safe pro-equality". </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mid-Kentucky</span> </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 113 yes, 63 no --> 64.2% YES </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 90 yes, 19 no --> 82.6% YES (+18.4%) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">With another 18% shift, Mid-Kentucky apparently wants to compete with Santa Fe for "largest percentage of pro-equality support". Not too many presbyteries are at the 80%+ support level yet, but thanks to Mid-Kentucky we now have one more. Nicely done. </span><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >John Knox </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 66 yes, 62 no --> 51.6% YES </span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 39 yes, 13 no --> 75% YES (+23.4%) </span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Yet another nailbiter HOLD presbytery delivers with an incredible 23% pro-equality shift. The significant vote count decline from 2001-2 to 2009 is apparently because this year's presbytery meeting was in the middle of a snowstorm. Traditionally the cultural rule has been that "the anti-gay vote will turn out no matter what the weather", however in this case the snowstorm appears to have impacted the anti-equality vote more than the pro-equality vote. Thanks to all the More Light movement supporters who came out in the snow to vote YES on 08-B this year in John Knox. </span>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-64598840849137039392009-02-21T19:50:00.000-08:002009-02-23T15:22:27.495-08:00Today's voting: summary with updates<pre style="font-family: arial;" face="arial" wrap="">(Feb. 22 last update: all Saturday 2/21 votes are now known.)<br /><br />The actual votes are on the tracking spreadsheet as usual, so here I'll just summarize predictions from yesterday, versus the actual vote outcome.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Final results for Saturday Feb. 21 voting:</span><br />Yes votes: 9<br />No votes: 6<br />No-to-yes flips: 4 out of a target 5<br />Nasty surprises: 0<br />Amazingly positive surprises: 0<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Arkansas</span><br />Category: FLIP<br />Result: Successful, flipped to "yes" vote.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Eastern Oregon</span><br />Category: HOLD<br />Result: Successful, held at "yes" vote<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Giddings-Lovejoy</span><br />Category: HOLD<br />Result: Successful, held at "yes" vote<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Greater Atlanta</span><br />Category: FLIP<br />Result: Successful, flipped to "yes" vote<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Homestead</span><br />Category: FLIP<br />Result: Unsuccessful, fell 3 votes short<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">John Knox</span><br />Category: HOLD<br />Result: Successful, held at "yes" vote<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Lake Erie</span><br />Category: LONG SHOT<br />Result: unsuccessful, didn't flip (that's why it was "long shot")<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Mid-Kentucky</span><br />Category: HOLD<br />Result: Successful, held at "yes" vote<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">New Hope</span><br />Category: FLIP<br />Result: Successful, flipped to "yes" vote<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">North Alabama</span><br />Category: SAM (history of strong anti-equality votes)<br />Result: Miracle unsuccessful, but comes in at a solid 39% YES support.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Ohio Valley</span><br />Category: FLIP<br />Result: Successful, flipped to "yes" vote<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sacramento</span><br />Category: LONG SHOT<br />Result: unsuccessful, didn't flip, but shifted 8% pro-equality<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Santa Fe</span> (not listed in Feb. 20 pre-weekend listing - I didn't know they were going to vote)<br />Category: HOLD<br />Result: Successful, held at "yes" vote<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">The James</span><br />Category: LONG SHOT<br />Result: Unsuccessful, didn't flip (but again, it was a long shot...)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Tropical Florida</span><br />Category: SAM (history of strong anti-equality votes)<br />Result: Miracle unsuccessful, and strong anti-equality shift (there's one in every crowd...)<br /><br /></pre>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-75358165177731300522009-02-20T22:56:00.000-08:002009-02-20T23:01:31.964-08:00Pre-weekend expectations-setting<pre style="font-family: arial;" wrap="">(Updated from a previous email-posted version).<br /><br />I took a look at the 14 presbyteries which I'm led to believe will vote tomorrow (Saturday Feb. 21) on 08-B, and have categorized them based on their previous vote in 2001-2. Here's what the categories mean:<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">HOLD</span>: previously voted pro-equality, want to maintain a pro-equality vote in 2009.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">FLIP</span>: Previously voted "no" by about 42%-49%, presbytery might flip pro-equality this year.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">LONG SHOT</span>: Previously voted "no" by a significant margin, small chance of shifting to pro-equality vote this year. (However, some of these have previously been our big positive surprises.)<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">SAM</span>: "Seeking A Miracle" - not expected (by me, but what do I know) to shift to a pro-equality vote this year.<br /><br />These are just my opinions based on prior history, and several votes in the past few weeks have already shown that my predictions are sometimes too conservative, so get out your salt shaker before you use this list.<br /><br />As always, all pro-LGBT percentage shifts are good news, even if the presbytery votes "no". So doing get-out-the-vote everywhere is important.<br /><br />FLIP Arkansas<br />HOLD Eastern Oregon<br />HOLD Giddings-Lovejoy, St. Louis, MO<br />FLIP Greater Atlanta<br />FLIP Homestead, Lincoln, NE<br />HOLD John Knox, Richland Center, WI<br />LONG SHOT Lake Erie, Erie, PA<br />HOLD Mid-Kentucky, Louisville, KY<br />FLIP New Hope, Chapel Hill, NC<br />SAM North Alabama, Huntsville, AL<br />FLIP Ohio Valley, Bloomington, IN<br />LONG SHOT Sacramento, Sacramento, CA<br />LONG SHOT The James, Richmond, VA<br />SAM Tropical Florida<br /><br />Total expected Saturday votes: 14.<br />Minimum number of "yes" votes to hold with 2001-2 vote counts: 4 votes.<br />My target number of "yes" votes (optimistic scenario): 8 votes.<br /><br />So 8 yes votes this weekend should be considered excellent. Anything above that is amazing, and anything approaching 12 "yes" votes would be considered a pro-equality blowout (and is also extremely unlikely).<br /><br />There are several presbyteries on this list in the low-50% range from 2001-2, so don't be surprised if we see our first "negative flip" this weekend -- we could see a presbytery shift a few percentage points anti-LGBT and that would be enough to shift it to a "no". Hopefully that won't happen, but you never know.<br /><br /></pre>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-48522416328211873862009-02-20T22:53:00.000-08:002009-02-20T22:54:39.592-08:00Stunning upset vote: Tres Rios presbytery shifts pro-equality<pre style="font-family: arial;" wrap="">With a record-setting 28% pro-equality shift compared to its previous 2001-2002 vote, it appears that Tres Rios has flipped pro-equality. At this point all I can say is that all bets and guesses about the end of the 08-B voting process are off, because simply on the basis of the 2001-2 vote count, you would never have convinced me in advance that the pro-equality vote would win the day here.<br /><br />Tres Rios Presbytery serves western Texas. A map is here:<br /><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://www.pcusa.org/links/sun.htm">www.pcusa.org/links/sun.htm</a><br /><br />Tres Rios vote stats:<br /> 2001-2 01-A: 17 yes, 54 no --> 24% YES<br /> 2009 08-B: 37 yes, 34 no --> 52% YES<br /><br />This is really a stunner, and in a good way. Whatever you folks are doing in Alabama and now in Texas, keep on doing it.</pre>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-10931012144018549302009-02-19T18:40:00.000-08:002009-02-19T18:42:33.438-08:00Two more vote updates and great news<div class="moz-text-flowed" style=";font-family:arial;font-size:13px;" lang="x-western">It appears that Sheppards & Lapsley presbytery, in central Alabama, has flipped from a previously strong anti-equality vote to a YES on 08-B vote this year. We also have a vote count from Western Colorado with a strong positive trend.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Sheppards & Lapsley </span><br />2001-2 01-A: 59 yes, 109 no --> 35.1% YES<br />2009 08-B: 77 yes, 75 no --> 50.7% YES<br /><br />Coming out of nowhere (i.e. not on my radar) with nearly a 16% pro-equality shift to flip to pro-equality by 2 votes, Sheppards & Lapsley suggests that this is going to be a very interesting few months of voting. I'd be happy to discover that my more conservative speculations about which presbyteries are likely to flip pro-equality could be completely wrong (in a good way).<br /><br />My presbytery map suggests that Sheppards & Lapsley includes both the cities of Birmingham and Montgomery, both of course well known historically for events that took place there during the civil rights movement.<br /><br />If there are More Light supporters in this presbytery who'd be interested in having a phone conversation, I'd love to do a phone interview with you to understand how you did it. (You can email me at hahne at io dot com). There could be ramifications for the larger LGBT equality movement. If we can understand what wins hearts, minds, and votes in central Alabama by 16% in 7 years, it could help to guide strategy within equality organizations well beyond the PCUSA LGBT equality movement.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Western Colorado </span><br />2001-2 01-A: 6 yes, 33 no --> 15% YES<br />2009 08-B: 11 yes, 23 no --> 32% YES<br /><br />This is an excellent (17%) pro-equality shift from Western Colorado, and it breaks in a positive way with the general trend that "presbyteries under 30% previous equality support are shifting anti-LGBT in their votes". In some sense we could say this vote "cancels out" the disappointment from Glacier Presbytery a few days ago, which had a 14% anti-equality shift.<br /><br /><br /></div>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-44543315333619086672009-02-17T18:44:00.000-08:002009-02-17T18:49:26.100-08:00Four presbytery votes, three flip pro-equality today<pre style="font-family: arial;font-family:verdana;" wrap="">The votes keep coming in and the news today is good. Two of the presbyteries to vote today were presbyteries very close to 50% "yes" in 2001-2, so we'd expect them to flip pro-equality this year.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Great Rivers:</span><br /> 2001-2 01-A: 99 yes, 108 yes --> 47.8% YES<br /> 2009 08-B: 85 yes, 74 no --> 53.5% YES<br /><br />This was a swing presbytery which we'd hope would shift to a pro-equality vote this year, and it did, with close to a 6% pro-equality shift.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Glacier Presbytery:</span><br /> 2001-2 01-A: 11 yes, 21 no --> 34.4% YES<br /> 2009 08-B: 7 yes, 28 no --> 20.0% YES<br /><br />This 14% anti-equality vote shift is disappointing, and breaks the general trend that says if you were previously over 30% pro-equality support, then the presbytery is typically shifting pro-equality in its votes. However the total number of people voting is so small that the percentage is very susceptible to smaller fluctuations in total vote counts.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Maumee Valley:</span><br />2001-2 01-A: 51 yes, 70 no --> 42% YES<br />2009 08-B: 65 yes, 58 no --> 53% YES<br /><br />With an 11% pro-equality shift and coming from a low-40% equality support to break over 50% this year, Maumee Valley so far is the big equality winner for the day.<br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Scioto Valley:</span><br />2001-2 01-A: 103 yes, 105 no --> 49.5% YES<br />2009 08-B: 115 yes, 88 no --> 56.7% YES<br /><br />Obviously that 2001-2 vote is about as close as you can get short of an exact tie. It's great to see a solid 7% pro-equality shift from Scioto Valley.<br /><br /></pre>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-19255210399681532492009-02-15T12:56:00.000-08:002009-02-15T20:01:14.135-08:00Five more presbytery vote updates<span style="font-family:arial;">Several additional presbytery vote counts are now available. There are</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> a few annoyances, but no surprises. Here's what I have, with the usual</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> commentary that you can choose to ignore as desired.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Inland Northwest:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 22 yes, 112 no --> 16.4% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 44 yes, 76 no --> 36.7% YES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The great thing about these strong "Seeking A Miracle" anti-equality</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> presbyteries is that they have a lot of possible positive movement. :-)</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> Inland Northwest is one of the big success stories of this batch of</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> presbyteries, coming in at over a 20% pro-equality shift. Note how</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> equality supporters were able to double the number of people voting yes,</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> while the "no" side lost over 30 votes compared to 2001-2.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This is a huge pro-LGBT shift and now puts Inland Northwest into the</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> above-30% category. If you're in this presbytery, now looks like a</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> great time to start a More Light Presbyterians chapter, if there isn't</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> one there already. (To be fair: actually ANY time anywhere is the right</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> time to start an MLP chapter, it's just that in Inland Northwest you've</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> clearly got some pro-equality momentum going -- time to find each other</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> and keep it going.)</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Memphis aka Mid-South:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 59 yes, 99 no --> 37.3% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 31 yes, 67 no --> 31.6% YES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This vote shift is a disappointment, since it's one of the first cases</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> where a presbytery with greater than 30% pro-equality support shifted</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> ANTI-equality in 2009. It's nearly a 6% negative shift. The</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">pro-equality vote count dropped from about 60 people to about 30 people,</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> which frankly doesn't make a lot of sense to me. I find it difficult to</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> believe that the number of equality suppoters in this presbytery has</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> been cut in half (59 yes down to 31 yes) in the past 7 years, so maybe</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> this vote is just a big statistical outlier. If anybody has an</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> interesting (factually accurate) back story about what was going on this</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> year with the voting in this presbytery, feel free to send it to me and</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> I can sanitize/summarize it to share.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Miami Valley (Ohio):</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 86 yes, 53 no --> 62% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 72 yes, 48 no --> 60% YES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">Miami Valley holds as a pro-equality presbytery, however I'm not just satisfied</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> with a yes-on-08B vote, I want to see pro-LGBT vote percentage shifts</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> over time. Although it's probably just statistical noise, here we see a</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> -2% ANTI-equality shift in the voting trends. This isn't particularly</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> cause to make anybody lose sleep at night, but we should be able to do</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> better than this. Presbyteries like Chicago have demonstrated that it's</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> possible to move from 60% "yes" to 75% "yes" in just 7 years, so I had</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> somewhat hoped to see at least an 8% pro-equality shift from Miami Valley this</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> year.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Saint Augustine:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 66 yes, 105 no --> 39% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 68 yes, 75 no --> 48% YES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">With a strong 9% pro-LGBT shift, St. Augustine fits with the general</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> pro-equality voting trend that we're seeing. This presbytery now moves</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> from "very difficult to win" into "swing presbytery, could flip</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> pro-equality" for future votes. Saint Augustine is a success story this</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> year.</span><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;font-family:arial;" >Shenandoah:</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 77 yes, 146 no --> 34.5% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> 2009 08-B: 82 yes, 112 no --> 42.3% YES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">This is nearly an 8% pro-equality shift, and moves another low-30%</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> presbytery into the low-40% pro-equality support category. Another</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> success story. As with St. Augustine Presbytery above, note how the</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> total number of support votes increased at the same time as the total</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> number of "no" votes decreased significantly.</span><br /><br /><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">So if you want my summary scorecard for this group of 5 presbyteries, it</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> would look like this:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Inland Northwest: fantastic (20% shift)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Memphis/Mis-South: disappointing, need to do better than this</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Miami: disappointing, we can do better</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> St. Augustine: very good (9% shift)</span><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"> Shenandoah: very good (8% shift)</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">No presbytery-level vote flips for this group of five (and I also didn't</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> expect any).</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">-------</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;"><span style="font-weight: bold;">My request / suggestion</span>: This is just me asking this, not MLP, however</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> if you're in a presbytery that hasn't voted yet, please find a few other</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> equality supporters in your presbytery and do some get-out-the-vote work</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> for pro-equality voting, no matter what type of presbytery you're in.</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> The total nationwide "yes" vote count (aka "popular vote") matters, and</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> you can increase that vote count wherever you are. In fact as we've</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> seen, some of the best pro-equality shifts can happen within some of the</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> most anti-equality presbyteries. And we've seen shifts of well above</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> 10% come in for all types of presbyteries, so it can happen anywhere if</span><span style="font-family:arial;"> you work at it.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family:arial;">The </span><a style="font-family: arial;" href="http://www.blogger.com/www.mlp.org/filemgmt/index.php?id=78">MLP 08-B resource kit</a><span style="font-family:arial;"> doesn't appear to contain a specific get-out-the-vote (GOTV) tactics advice document, however if you're uncertain about how to do GOTV, don't worry, we can get you hooked up with the right people for some help. I bet that the team at MLP can assist with advice, or you can always email me and I can help get you in touch with some assistance. Nobody should sit around doing nothing simply because you're not sure what to do.<br /><br /></span>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-88456565649893651172009-02-14T18:20:00.000-08:002009-02-14T18:22:38.088-08:00Charlotte presbytery flips pro-LGBT<span style="font-family: arial;">In yet another vote shift that I certainly didn't expect, Charlotte presbytery, which took a voice vote "no" on 01-A in 2001-2, has now voted YES on 08-B. Many thanks to the equality supporters in Charlotte presbytery for the nice Valentine's Day present.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">This is the third presbytery to vote that had previously taken a voice vote "no" in 2001-2. The first was East Tennessee, which also flipped pro-LGBT this year. The second was Wyoming presbytery, which voted no on 08-B this year. So we're two for three in shifting previous voice-voice presbyteries to a pro-equality position. That's a really good track record -- I was originally guessing that all previous "voice vote no" presbyteries would also vote no on 08-B this year.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">The lesson here seems to be "count the vote, don't just do a voice vote". You never know how the vote might turn out, and even if you lose, taking an actual vote count allows equality supporters to realize that you're not alone in wanting pro-equality change.</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Here are the stats that I know of for today's votes:</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Charlotte presbytery:</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: voice vote "no", no percentage available</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> 2009 08-B: 133 yes, 124 no --> 52% YES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">Pines presbytery:</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> 2001-2 01-A: 31 yes, 45 no --> 41% YES</span><br /><span style="font-family: arial;"> 2009 08-B: 34 yes, 36 no --> 49% YES</span><br /><br /><span style="font-family: arial;">So we have another "close, but not quite" situation in Pines, similar to Cincinnati earlier this week, however it's still a solid 8% pro-equality shift.</span>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-47050887335245485072009-02-12T17:40:00.000-08:002009-02-14T17:42:09.442-08:00Pueblo and Southeastern Illinois presbyteries<pre style="font-family: arial;" wrap="">Another presbytery has shifted in favor of equality -- in this case it's a presbytery that we'd hope would shift pro-LGBT this year.<br /><br />Southeastern Illinois:<br /> 2001-2 01-A: 69 yes, 77 no --> 47.3% YES<br /> 2009 08-B: 68 yes, 56 no --> 54.8% YES<br /><br />So it's close to an 8% pro-LGBT shift, and this presbytery votes YES on equality this year. Very nice.<br /><br />Also, in the past day or two Pueblo Presbytery voted. Although this was another "very unlikely to shift to yes" presbytery, the percentage pro-equality shift is excellent:<br /><br />Pueblo:<br /> 2001-2 01-A: 23 yes, 77 no --> 23% YES<br /> 2009 08-B: 27 yes, 54 no --> 33% YES<br /><br />This is one of just a few presbyteries, under 30% previous pro-equality support, to shift in a pro-equality direction -- in this case by a significant percentage.</pre>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-24592485055470061152009-02-11T11:58:00.000-08:002009-02-14T17:44:26.698-08:00Four more recent presbytery votes: one flip, one "almost"<pre style="font-family: arial;" wrap="">Votes continue to come in as more presbyteries vote. Here are the latest numbers.<br /><br />Blackhawk:<br />2001-2 01-A: 48 yes, 90 no --> 35% YES<br />2009 08-B: 57 yes, 73 no --> 44% YES<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><br />Chicago:<br />2001-2 01-A: 247 yes, 170 no --> 59% YES<br />2009 08-B: 204 yes, 69 no --> 75% YES<br /><br />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.<br /><br /><br />Cimarron:<br />2001-2 01-A: 16 yes, 20 no --> 44.4% YES<br />2009 08-B: 19 yes, 16 no --> 54.3% YES<br /><br />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...<br /></pre><pre style="font-family: arial;" wrap=""><br /><br />Cincinnati:<br />2001-2 01-A: 95 yes, 113 no --> 45.7% YES<br />2009 08-B: 83 yes, 83 no --> 50.0% YES (but not sufficient to pass)<br /><br />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!"<br /><br />However it's still a 4% pro-equality shift, so we'll get there eventually.</pre>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-3107672920229071352009-02-11T11:56:00.000-08:002009-02-11T11:58:24.417-08:00How many presbyteries? The importance of voting trends<pre style="font-family: verdana;" wrap="">On a mailing list, somebody asked:<br /><br />> how many non-supportive presbyteries need to flip to PRO for Amendment 08B to pass?<br /><br />My math says that 46 presbyteries voted "yes" on 01-A in 2001-2, so it would take an additional 41 presbyteries shifting votes from "no" or "no action" to "yes" to get the necessary 87 votes to pass 08-B.<br /><br />That's a very difficult voting cliff to scale in just 7 years, which is one reason why I feel it's important to track not just the resulting presbytery vote totals, but the percentage shifts within each presbytery.<br /><br />The "no" votes start from a very strong base -- there are simply a lot of presbyteries that voted under 35% for equality in 2001-2, and it's very difficult to move from 35% equality support to 51% support in 7 years. The good news is that we're seeing a lot of the low-30's presbyteries become high-30's or even low-40's in terms of pro-equality support, which makes them easier to get to 51% if there needs to be a "next time".<br /><br />My hope is that we'll at least make it to >50% of all individual presbytery voters voting "yes", even if 08-B doesn't make it. That would be the equivalent of "winning the popular vote but losing the electoral college vote" and would be a huge symbolic victory for equality (don't discount the value of symbolism). So it's important for everybody to work on "yes" voter turnout and persuasion no matter where you are.</pre>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-25122922145471196392009-02-09T17:18:00.000-08:002009-02-09T17:19:12.089-08:00Two more vote updates from the past weekend<pre style="font-family: verdana;" wrap="">We have two more presbytery vote updates from the past weekend. Both are "no" votes, however both of these were expected, and again the trends look good.<br /><br />Flint River:<br /> 2001-2 01-A: 20 yes, 71 no --> 22% YES<br /> 2009 08-B: 27 yes, 47 no --> 36.5% YES<br /><br />This is one of the first presbyteries to break with the trend of "under-30% presbyteries are shifting anti-gay". Here we have nearly a 15% PRO-equality shift in a traditionally very anti-LGBT presbytery.<br /><br />Flint River's vote shows that it IS possible to move the vote pro-equality even in the difficult presbyteries. Even better is that the shift doesn't result entirely from fewer people voting "no" -- there was also a significant increase in the "yes" vote count even though the total number of people voting at presbytery declined from 2001-2.<br /><br />So I wouldn't place any bets on a "yes to delete B" vote from Flint River any time soon, but this year's vote is a very positive trend.<br /><br /><br /><br />Wyoming:<br /> 2001-2 01-A: voice vote "no" --> no percentage available<br /> 2009 08-B: 18 yes, 38 no --> 32% YES<br /><br />Here we have our second "voice 'no' vote in 2001-2" presbytery to take its vote. Unlike East Tennessee, Wyoming didn't flip pro-LGBT. However, even the fact that the presbytery shifted from taking a voice vote to taking a counted vote suggests to me that there's a pro-LGBT trend. If a vote is going to be really painfully lopsided, you can take it via voice, but Wyoming didn't do that this year.<br /><br />Wyoming has now come in at over 30% pro-LGBT in the vote, so if my rule of thumb holds that says ">30% pro-equality means it will trend more pro-equality", then over time Wyoming should improve gradually in its pro-LGBT voting patterns.<br /><br /><br />So again even though both of these are "no" votes, the trends favor equality for both of these presbyteries.</pre>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-59609005279911689972009-02-08T12:49:00.000-08:002009-02-14T17:42:47.079-08:00Weekend voting wrapup - a good weekend for equality<div class="moz-text-flowed" style="font-family: verdana; font-size: 13px;" lang="x-western"><span style="font-size:100%;">I've now updated the tracking and percent-shift <a href="http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pz4ZcEBLpqZuM9uHsVdKKWw">spreadsheet</a> with the known results of this weekend's votes.<br /><br />Scorecard for the weekend:<br />- 7 presbyteries voted<br />- 0 of these fell into my definition of "swing presbyteries" that I speculated could change their vote this year.<br />- 6 trended pro-LGBT compared to 2001-2.<br />- 1 flipped from voting anti-equality to voting pro-equality.<br />- Total: 3 "yes" votes, 4 "no" votes on 08-B. I would have predicted 2 "yes", 5 "no" if you had asked me in advance.<br /><br />So this was a good weekend for equality.<br /><br />As Michael Adee recently mentioned on the <a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/morelightpresbyterians/">Morelightpresbyterians Yahoogroups list</a>, we had another presbytery flip to pro-equality this weekend: East Tennessee. What's interesting about this presbytery is that in 2001-2 it took a voice vote on delete-b overture 01-A. I had been assuming that the "voice vote NO" presbyteries were probably so anti-LGBT that they would never flip pro-equality this year. East Tennessee now tells us that I was wrong, which is good.<br /><br />There are 11 other presbyteries that took voice "no" votes on 01-A in 2001-2 (see the spreadsheet and look for "VOICE"), so it will be interesting to see if any of these might flip pro-LGBT this year.<br /><br />Here's a summary of the percentage shifts from this weekend's votes, plus some comments:<br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >East Tennessee</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /> 2001-2 01-A: voice vote no --> no percentage available<br /> 2009 08-B: 81 yes, 66 no --> 55.1% YES<br /><br />Great job in East Tennessee to everybody working on More Light concerns there. This presbytery's voting history has been consistently anti-LGBT in the past, so to bring in the vote at a solid 55% pro-equality is a very strong positive shift.<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >New Covenant</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /> 2001-2 01-A: 120 yes, 214 no --> 36% YES<br /> 2009 08-B: 119 yes, 171 no --> 41% YES (5% pro-LGBT shift)<br /><br />This isn't as spectacular a pro-LGBT shift as some of the mid-30%-support presbyteries have shown, however 5% is pretty solid. Every presbytery that shifts into the 40's with a "yes" vote becomes a more likely target swing presbytery in case we need to go through this delete-B exercise again in a few years.<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >The Peaks</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /> 2001-2 01-A: 77 yes, 166 no --> 32% YES<br /> 2009 08-B: 74 yes, 136 no --> 35% YES (3% pro-LGBT shift)<br /><br />This 3% shift stays consistent with my working theory that presbyteries with previous votes slightly over 30% pro-equality are slowly shifting in the pro-equality direction.<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >Plains and Peaks</span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /> 2001-2 01-A: 60 yes, 91 no --> 39.7% YES<br /> 2009 08-B: 41 yes, 60 no --> 40.6% YES (1% pro-LGBT shift)<br /><br />Nothing spectacular, but I'll gladly take a 1% pro-LGBT shift even though it's pretty much statistical noise. The reduction in total voters is interesting here -- 151 people in 2001-2 vs. 101 people in 2009. Many presbyteries show similar trends in the total number of voters.<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >Prospect Hill </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /> 2001-2 01-A: 24 yes, 62 no --> 28% YES<br /> 2009 08-B: 12 yes, 63 no --> 16% YES (12% anti-LGBT shift, ouch)<br /><br />This 12% shift in the anti-LGBT direction is consistent with my working theory that many presbyteries under 30% previous support are trending anti-equality in their votes. This is the largest anti-LGBT percentage shift we've seen so far. Checking my presbytery map, I see that Prospect Hill is in northwest Iowa plus a tiny bit of Nebraska, which doesn't particularly strike me as an area that I'd "expect" to trend anti-gay, however I don't live there so I don't know.<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >Redwoods </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /> 2001-2 01-A: 102 yes, 49 no --> 67.5% YES<br /> 2009 08-B: 102 yes, 28 no --> 78.5% YES (11% pro-LGBT shift)<br /><br />Nice job to everybody in Redwoods for demonstrating that a presbytery already with a 2/3 pro-LGBT voting record can give us an additional 11% pro-LGBT shift.<br /><br /><br /></span><span style="font-weight: bold;font-size:100%;" >Winnebago </span><span style="font-size:100%;"><br /> 2001-2 01-A: 50 yes, 20 no --> 71.4% YES<br /> 2009 08-B: 55 yes, 20 no --> 73.3% YES (2% pro-LGBT shift)<br /><br />And to round them out, a >70% pro-LGBT presbytery shows that you're not done with the work of trending pro-equality until it's 100% YES. :-)<br /><br /></span></div>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-79651086933204589512009-02-04T16:11:00.000-08:002009-02-04T16:12:43.624-08:00Excellent pro-LGBT shift from St. Andrew presbytery<pre style="font-family: verdana;" wrap="">It appears that St. Andrew Presbytery voted on 08-B very recently, and although 08-B didn't pass there, the pro-LGBT shift is very high:<br /><br />2001-2 01-A: 11 yes, 86 no --> 11.3% YES<br />2009 08-B: 30 yes, 50 no --> 37.5% YES<br /><br />This is a 26% pro-LGBT shift in just 7 years, the largest shift we've seen in any presbytery so far. They nearly tripled the number of people voting for equality. And it's one of a few presbyteries with previous LGBT support under 30% which has shifted in a pro-LGBT direction. Many of the under-30% presbyteries have been shifting anti-LGBT when we compare 2001-2 to 2009.<br /><br />So in terms of "largest pro-LGBT shift in a presbytery vote", Saint Andrew is presently in the lead. Nice job.<br /></pre>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3750653666415900101.post-25595223824401018852009-02-03T17:08:00.000-08:002009-02-03T17:12:07.755-08:00Lake Huron Presbytery flips pro-LGBT<pre style="font-family: verdana;" wrap="">For the second time in just a few days, a presbytery which previously voted anti-LGBT in 2001-2 has flipped its vote and has now voted pro-equality.<br /><br />Lake Huron stats:<br />2001-2 01-A: 42 yes, 64 no --> 39.6% YES<br />2009 08-B: 43 yes, 32 no --> 57.3% YES<br /><br />This is an 18% pro-LGBT shift in just 7 years, which is fantastic. And it's also in another "under 40%" presbytery that I wouldn't have expected to flip very easily this year.<br /><br />If you're working in a presbytery and you aren't sure what to do to advocate for yes-on-08-B, maybe get on the phone to a pro-LGBT supporter at these presbyteries (Western North Carolina and now Lake Huron, both of which flipped) and ask them for tips. But first download and read <a href="http://www.mlp.org/filemgmt/index.php?id=78">MLP's "yes" resource kit</a> from mlp.org, of course.<br /><br /></pre>Brucehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08778422629718278471noreply@blogger.com