Note: The following is more a research paper than a blog entry. For easier reading, the whole paper, about 20 pages, can be downloaded from the following:
Voters in Fayetteville, Arkansas repealed the city’s “Civil
Rights Administration” ordinance at a referendum on December 9, 2014. The ordinance had been approved by Fayetteville’s
city council at a meeting on August 19th that ended in the early
hours of August 20th. The purpose of ordinance 5703 was to protect
“the right of all persons to be free from discrimination based on real or
perceived race, ethnicity, national origin, age, gender, gender identity,
gender expression, familial status, marital status, socioeconomic background,
religion, sexual orientation, disability and veteran status” to ensure equal
access to employment, housing, and public accommodations.[1]
This ordinance was adapted from one drafted by the Human
Rights Campaign (HRC), a Washington-based advocacy group for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual,
and Transgender (LGBT) people.[2] In addition to prohibiting discrimination, it
called for designation of a city civil rights administrator to investigate discrimination
complaints and refer them, if needed, to the city prosecutor’s office. The ordinance
specified that violators could be fined up to $500 if convicted of violating its
provisions. It applied to businesses in the city employing five or more people
and to contractors doing business with Fayetteville. Similar ordinances have
been enacted in about 200 cities in 18 states. None had been passed in
Arkansas.[3]
Technically, ordinance 5703 would have added chapter 119,
titled “Civil Rights Administration,” to the city code, and this chapter would
have provided the protections and their administration. However, chapter 119
never became part of the code because a group calling itself “Repeal 119”
collected enough signatures to require a vote on whether ordinance 5703 should
be repealed. The referendum title was: “Repeal, in its entirety, Ordinance No.
5703 which enacted Chapter 119 of the Fayetteville, Arkansas city code.” A
“yes” vote was to repeal the ordinance and stop the enactment of Chapter 119.
Because a majority of Fayetteville voters voted “yes,” ordinance
5703 was repealed and chapter 119 was never implemented. Of the 14,574 citizens
who voted on the issue, 7,527 of them (51.6%) supported repeal and 7,047 (48.4%)
voted against repeal. The margin of victory for the repeal supporters was 480
votes.
This narrow margin is significant because of the
extraordinary circumstances of the referendum: 16 of the city’s 17 polling
places were in church buildings, sites associated with ministers and religious
spokespersons who led the effort to repeal ordinance 5703. These spokespersons
asserted that the ordinance was an attack on religion and it would unleash
sexual predators to prey on women and children in publicly accessible bathrooms.
They, including several who live elsewhere, exhorted Fayetteville ministers to
take urgent action to get voters to the polls to stop an ordinance that would
“restrict religious freedom” and “degrade morality.”
When Election Day came, almost all voters cast their votes that
day at polling sites located in the buildings of organizations that had been in
the forefront of the campaign to repeal the ordinance. Did the fact that almost
all of the polling places on December 9th were in churches have an
effect on the outcome of the election? Some data suggest, but do not prove,
that it did. If it did have even a small effect, influencing just a few people
to vote for repeal of the ordinance, that number might have been sufficient to
swing the election. The ordinance would not have been repealed if 241
election-day voters had voted to reject the repeal instead of supporting it.
The campaign to repeal ordinance 5703, cancelling
implementation of Chapter 119, was conducted largely by Repeal 119, a church-
and religion-dominated “ballot question committee.”[4] According to Repeal
119’s website, more than half of the churches in Fayetteville supported repeal
of the ordinance. Apparently, the remaining Fayetteville churches did not take
a public position on the issue, except that the clergy of three churches, St.
Paul’s Episcopal Church, First United Presbyterian Church, and Good Shepard
Lutheran Church, spoke against the repeal of 119.[5]
The president of the Repeal 119 campaign organization was a
minister, Duncan Campbell, and his wife Wendy Campbell was secretary of the
organization. The two have what they call “apostolic and prophetic
ministries.” According to their website:
Explaining his personal beliefs, Duncan Campbell said his
conscience tells him homosexuality is a sin, like adultery. He said, “Many
people who study the Bible believe it’s unbiblical behavior.”[6]
The Repeal 119 campaign focused on three assertions that
were included in its half-page advertisement in the December 7th
edition of the Northwest Arkansas Times
(NWAT): (1) This law is dangerous
for people of faith, (2) This law is dangerous for women and children, and (3)
This law is dangerous for business. The third argument, concerning the putative
impacts of the ordinances on businesses, echoed the claims of the Fayetteville
Chamber of Commerce.[8] The first and second claims, addressing religious and
“moral” concerns, were central to Repeal 119’s campaign.
As spokespersons for Repeal 119, the Campbells had much to
say about it. Wendy Campbell asked, “Why
do they want to persecute the church….?”[9]
And in a video on the Repeal 119 website, Duncan Campbell claimed that
the ordinance would “allow the city to dictate to a church, to ministers, and
to believers who they must hire for certain positions they deem secular, who
must serve same sex ceremonies, and there are no stated exceptions in the law
for ministers.”
In his personal blog, Ronnie Floyd elaborated on the
putative effects of the ordinance on religious freedom:
While Repeal 119’s assertion that the ordinance would
infringe on religious freedoms was an important part of its campaign, another claim
was featured even more prominently in its message, perhaps because it was more a
more effective way to alarm and frighten voters. In its December 7th
newspaper advertisement, Repeal 119 stated that the ordinance was “dangerous
for women and children” because it would enable men who said they were
transgender to use women’s bathrooms, dressing rooms, and locker rooms.
Even before the ordinance was passed, Jeremy Flanagan,
pastor of Pathway Baptist Church on Mount Comfort Road in Fayetteville,
complained that under this ordinance, a man could claim to be a woman in an
effort to gain entry to women’s bathrooms or changing areas. He said the
ordinance “gives anyone claiming to be transgender the right to choose which
public locker room, dressing room, bathroom or other previously gender-specific
area they wish to use. If anyone questions them or refuses to let them use the
space of their choice, that individual could be held criminally liable. This
new, special privilege opens a door for sexual predators to claim being
transgender in order to access these private areas.”[10]
Echoing these assertions, Duncan Campbell, in a video on the Repeal 119 website, said that the ordinance “legalizes indecent exposure for transgender men in women’s locker rooms, showers and bathrooms because under the new law they would be considered women.” He continued, “If you refuse to let a man enter a woman’s locker room at your local gym, even if your wife or daughter was in the locker room taking a shower, you become a criminal.”
Another argument for repeal, though not featured in Repeal
119 advertisements, was that its defeat would help stop the LGBT movement’s broader
efforts to gain civil rights protections.
Many repeal supporters came from outside Fayetteville with the message
that the city had the chance to be the first local government to reject the
type of ordinance some called a SOGI [Sexual Orientation Gender Identity] law.
They apparently not only viewed Fayetteville as one of many battles to be
fought against advocates for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender rights,
but most were also contemptuous of the idea that such people needed or deserved
protection. They urged ministers to fully use their pulpits and positions to
get Fayetteville voters to take a “historic” stand.
One repeal supporter who spoke in Fayetteville was David
Welch, director of the Houston Area Pastor Council. In his remarks in a video
message on the Repeal 119 website, he made clear what he and other religious
leaders believed was at stake in the referendum. He called the ordinance “a direct assault
against the foundational principles that this nation was built on.” He continued,
“When we are battling over an ordinance that says a male is not a male and
female is not a female, and we can decide our own genders, we are at the last
stage of cultural degradation. We have to turn this thing around.”
In his blog, Ronnie Floyd, president of Southern Baptist Conference, added to the exhortation to Fayetteville voters to strike down the ordinance. He wrote:
Another minister from San Antonio, Charles Flowers, made a similar plea to voters:
[T]he goal [of the ordinance] is to punish individuals and businesses that do not override their deeply held Biblical convictions to affirm special rights for homosexuals….
The churches in Fayetteville are stepping up. They are making phone calls, walking blocks and mobilizing pastors and churches to educate their congregants about the importance of voting on December 9. There is unprecedented unity and cooperation between Black, white and Hispanic pastors in Fayetteville as well as pro-family organizations across the nation, state and city. What happens in Fayetteville depends upon the involvement of pastors and churches in that city. And the efforts currently underway in Fayetteville need to be replicated across the nation in the more than 170 cities that have also passed SOGI ordinances that include penalties for dissenters. http://nationalblackroberegiment.com/fayetteville-arkansas-pastors-rally-repeal-anti-religious-freedom-ordinance/
These calls to battle for Fayetteville churches and
ministers illustrate the primacy of the religion-based campaign for repeal of
119 as well as the motives and beliefs of many of the repeal supporters.[12] They
sought to make all churches active advocates and partisans in the referendum
campaign. It is not hard to imagine what ministers in Baptist Churches, and probably
in many others, had to say about the ordinance on the Sunday before the
referendum vote.
Opposition to Repeal of 119
Opposition to the repeal of Chapter 119 was led by a “ballot
question committee” called “Keep Fayetteville Fair.” Its president was Anne
Shelley, executive director of the Northwest Arkansas Rape Crisis Center. This
organization argued that gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender residents of
Fayetteville needed the same protections as provided by state and federal law
against discrimination based on age, color, religion, national origin, and sex.
(see
http://fairfayetteville.com )
 |
| From Northwest Arkansas Times, Nov. 30, 2104, p. 1a |
The alderman who was the leading advocate for the ordinance,
Matthew Perry, spoke often against repeal.
He summarized the argument against repeal as follows: “No one should be
kicked out of their house. No one should be kicked out of a restaurant. Nobody
in Fayetteville should lose a job because of who they are or who they love.”[13]
He also argued:
All folks who work hard, pay their
taxes, serve in our military, and contribute to our community deserve to be
treated fairly under the law, including our gay and transgender neighbors.
Freedom means freedom for everyone – it is wrong to treat people differently
solely on they are or who they love. After all, everyone needs to be able to
earn a living and provide for their families.”[14]
The Fairness group spent much of its efforts trying to
refute the many assertions of the Repeal 119 group and its allies. They pointed
out that the city council had passed an amendment to the ordinance that made it
clear that ministers would not be forced to conduct gay marriages and that the
city council had also amended the ordinance that would stop prohibit anyone “to
enter any gender-segregated space for any unlawful purpose.”[15] In an op-ed
piece in the NWAT on Nov. 30, Petty
maintained that “all of the arguments of the opposition have either been
debunked or are addressed by the ordinance.”
The two groups, Repeal 119 and Keep Fayetteville Fair, each
collected and spent about $33,000. Repeal 119 received over $30,000 worth of
nonmonetary donations; other pro-repeal expenditures by the Fayetteville
Chamber of Commerce and the Little Rock-based Family Council were not reported.
Keep Fayetteville Fair received $166,080 in nonmonetary contributions from the
Human Rights Campaign whose staff helped conduct the campaign against repeal of
the ordinance.[17]
Church-Based Polling
Places
While no one would suggest that churches and religious
organizations did not have the right to actively support the repeal of 119,
their deep involvement in the referendum created a strange and unsettling situation:
a majority of Fayetteville churches actively supported repeal of the Civil
Rights Administration ordinance AND their church buildings were used as polling
sites. Because 16 of the city’s 17 polling places were in churches, almost all
election-day voters had to travel to, enter, and vote in buildings of organizations
that, as a whole, had actively taken a position on the issue.
Among the church-located polling places, one (Covenant
Presbyterian Church) gave Repeal 119 office space to use as its headquarters. Three
of the polling places were in Baptist Churches; as noted above the president of
the Southern Baptist Convention, Ronnie Floyd, was a zealous supporter of
repealing 119. At least one church took
advantage of its location as a polling place to put up a sign at an entrance to
its parking lot urging voters to vote to “Repeal 119.”[18] This sign was a
legal distance (more than 100 feet) from its entrance, but was visible from
polling place.
 |
Polling Place at Trinity Fellowship, Rolling Hills Drive, Dec. 9, 2014
An Entry to the Polling Place is the Door Located Above the "r" in "December" |
Aside from the obvious observation that it is strange that active
partisans in the election hosted supposedly neutral polling places, other potential
problems of using churches as polling places for votes on “moral” or religious
issues are these:
* Some voters may be uncomfortable going into churches or into buildings associated with certain denominations or religions and thus may deterred from voting. For example, if a polling place were in a mosque or a temple, some Christians might be uneasy about voting, or even unwilling to vote, in those locations.[19] Similarly, non-religious or non-Christian voters may have qualms about going into church buildings to vote, especially if they know the churches have taken a public stance opposed to theirs.
In the Fayetteville case, the voters most likely to have no discomfort with, or have any doubts about, voting in polling places located in Protestant churches are the ones most likely to vote for repeal of 119.
* When going into churches to vote, voters are inevitably subjected to religious cues or stimuli – both subtle and not-so-subtle -- that may, often unconsciously, influence their voting behavior. The influence of these cues or stimuli has been called the “Polling Place Priming Effect.” The existence of such an effect has been found in the limited research done on the topic of how voting in polling places located in schools affect voting results. This research has shown that voters who vote in school-located polling places are more likely (compared to voters who vote in non-school locations) to vote for measures, such as tax increases and bond issues, that would benefit schools.
At present, research is
inconclusive on the effects of voting in church-located polling places on vote
results when issues are “moral” or religious. Priming theory suggests the
existence of such an effect, and a few empirical and experimental research
studies have found that some votes cast in churches on issues such as gay
marriage were influenced by the setting. However, other empirical studies have
found no such locational effect. (See a summary of research on this topic in
appendix 1.) Until more and better research has been conducted on the topic, it
is not possible to make a definitive claim that voting in a church-located
polling place does or does not influence some voters.
Did Voting in
Churches Affect the Outcome of the Fayetteville Referendum?
For the Fayetteville referendum, voters had the option of
voting early by going to the county courthouse to vote or by submitting absentee
ballots by mail. In all, roughly
one-third of the voters (4,622) cast their votes during the week prior to
Election Day.
None of the early voters went to church-located polling
places to vote. Neither did the people who voted on Election Day at the Yvonne
Richardson Community Center Polling Place (525 persons). In all, the total
number of voters who did not vote in polling places within church buildings was
5,147 persons. The other 9,427 voters, voted on Election Day in church
buildings
The voting results differed greatly by location of polling
place and by when people voted. Voters who voted in polling places in churches
strongly supported repeal of the Civil Rights Administration ordinance: 56.7%
voted for repeal and only 43.3% voted against it. In contrast, only 42.4%
of the voters who did not vote in church-located polling places supported
repeal while 57.6% voted against it. See table 1.
Similarly, among voters who voted on Election Day, 55.3%
supported repeal and 44.7% opposed it. Of the voters who voted early, casting
their votes at the county courthouse or by mail, only 43.8% supported repeal
and 56.2% opposed it. See table 2.
The 14.3 percentage point difference in support for repeal
of 119 by voters in church-located polling places (56.7%) and by voters at
non-church polling places (42.4%) suggests that voting in churches might have influenced
how some people voted. If not, other good explanations must be found to account
for the differences in vote results by church and non-church polling locations.
One possible alternative explanation is that the
socio-economic characteristics (e.g., age, employment, and income) of voters
opposing repeal made them find early voting more appealing than voting on
Election Day, or perhaps they found it more necessary than election-day voters to
vote early because of their work responsibilities. Another possible explanation
is that perhaps some repeal opponents did not want to go to a church-located
polling place to vote, so they voted early to avoid doing so; conversely, some
repeal supporters might have preferred voting in church-located polling places,
especially if the polling place was in their own church, so they waited to vote
on Election Day.
Unfortunately, none of the explanations of voting result
differences by location can be tested statistically because the voting data are
incomplete. While the votes cast on Election Day were tabulated by the polling
places (although not by precinct) of voters, the early votes were not. That is,
early voters were not identified by the precinct in which they live, or by
their polling place jurisdiction. Thus, it is not possible to determine by precinct
or by polling place jurisdiction how many people voted or how the votes for and
against repeal of 119 were distributed.
Table 1
Votes on Repeal of Ordinance 5703
(Chapter 119)
By Voters Who Voted in Church Buildings
and Voters Who Did Not
|
Type of Voters
|
Votes For Repeal
|
Votes Against Repeal
|
Total Votes
|
Voted in Church Polling Places
|
|
|
|
Number
|
5,347
|
4,080
|
9,427
|
Percentage
|
56.7
|
43.3
|
|
|
|
|
|
Voted in Non-Church Polling Places
|
2,180
|
2,967
|
5,147
|
Number
|
42.4
|
57.6
|
|
Percentage
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total
|
|
|
|
Number
|
7,527
|
7,047
|
14,574
|
Percentage
|
51.6
|
48.4
|
|
Table 2
Votes on Repeal of the Ordinance 5703
(Chapter 119)
By Early Voters and Election Day Voters
|
Type of Voter
|
Votes For Repeal
|
Votes Against Repeal
|
Total Votes
|
Election Day Voters
|
|
|
|
Number
|
5,502
|
4,450
|
9,952
|
Percentage
|
55.3
|
44.7
|
|
|
|
|
|
Early Voters*
|
|
|
|
Number
|
2,025
|
2,597
|
4,622
|
Percentage
|
43.8
|
56.2
|
|
|
|
|
|
All Voters
|
|
|
|
Number
|
7,527
|
7,047
|
14,574
|
Percentage
|
51.6
|
48.4
|
|
*Includes
132 absentee ballots. All others are early votes in the County Courthouse
The problems with the data can be seen in table3. It lists
the 17 polling places and shows for each: (1) the precincts within it, (2) the
number of registered voters, (3) the number of voters who voted on Election Day,
and (4) the percentage of voters who voted for repeal on Election Day. These numbers are incomplete because the vote
counts exclude voters living within polling place boundaries who voted early.
Thus, we cannot determine accurately the total number of referendum votes cast
by voters living in each polling place jurisdiction nor the percentage of
voters living in each polling place jurisdiction who voted for repeal.
Table 3
Precincts, Number of Registered Voters,
Referendum Vote on Election Day, and
Percentage Voting for Repeal on Election
Day by Polling Place
|
Polling Place
|
|
|
|
|
Churches
|
Precincts
|
No. of Registered Voters
|
Number Voting in the Referendum
|
Pct. Voting
for Repeal
|
Awakening (Baptist)
|
28
|
1,374
|
300
|
79.7
|
Baldwin C. of Christ
|
11, 47
|
1,226
|
382
|
67.5
|
Buckner Baptist
|
12
|
2,421
|
595
|
66.2
|
Central Methodist
|
4, 5, 36
|
3,739
|
568
|
21.4
|
Christ’s Church
|
1, 10, 15, 16
|
2,671
|
381
|
51.0
|
Christian Life Cathedral
|
14, 22, 37, 38, 41
|
2,865
|
374
|
57.2
|
Covenant Life (Presbyterian)
|
30, 32, 43, 46, 48
|
3,499
|
654
|
75.2
|
First Assembly
|
21
|
654
|
189
|
70.4
|
Mt. Comfort C. of Christ
|
2, 27, 31,33, 40
|
6,829
|
1337
|
67.0
|
First Presbyterian
|
7, 29
|
1,810
|
542
|
55.0
|
Sang Baptist
|
2, 3, 26, 42
|
5,386
|
824
|
49.5
|
Sequoyah Methodist
|
17, 18
|
2,314
|
767
|
45.2
|
St. John’s Lutheran
|
19, 44
|
2,211
|
610
|
59.3
|
Trinity Fellowship
|
13, 14
|
2,458
|
1188
|
64.6
|
Trinity Methodist
|
6, 30, 35, 39, 45
|
5,071
|
294
|
25.1
|
Wiggins Methodist
|
9, 24
|
2,546
|
418
|
34.7
|
Total Churches
|
|
47,074
|
9,957
|
56.3
|
|
|
|
|
|
Non-Church
|
|
|
|
|
Yvonne Richardson Center
|
8, 25
|
2,445
|
525
|
29.5
|
|
|
|
|
|
Total Polling Places
|
|
49,519
|
9,947
|
55.3
|
The vote results presented in table 3 show that, at least on
election-day, votes for and against repeal varied greatly by where voters live within
Fayetteville. At one extreme, 79.7 percent of election-day voters at the Awakening
Baptist Church polling place (located along the northeast border of the city)
supported repeal of 119. At the other extreme, only 21.4% of election-day
voters at the Trinity Methodist Church polling place, which lies in the center
of the city, voted to repeal the ordinance. In general, the greatest election-day
support for the repeal came from precincts west of I-49 and on the eastern
edges of the city. The strongest opposition came from the center of the city
and areas to the north of it (see map in appendix 2).
Ultimately, without the complete voting results by polling
place jurisdiction, which would have enabled some interesting statistical
analysis of the votes, it is possible only to point out the huge difference in
vote results for election-day voters who voted in churches and for all other
voters. One plausible, but unprovable, explanation for at least part of the
difference is that the locational effect influenced some votes. That is, some
people who voted in church-located polling places for repeal may have voted
against repeal if they had voted in a polling place not in a church. If 241
election-day voters did so, they provided the margin of victory for repeal
supporters.
Conclusion
The Washington County Election Commission, according to the
local newspaper, received several complaints about the use of churches as polling
places for the December 9th referendum.[22] Similar concern about
this practice has been expressed in several other states.[23] The use of
churches as polling places has even been challenged in court in a couple of
states. However, so far, courts have not ruled against this practice.[24]
Using churches as polling places for the Fayetteville
referendum seems especially problematic because of the involvement of churches
in the effort to repeal ordinance 5703. Not only did a majority of local churches
take a position on the issue, national religious leaders called on churches and
ministers to convince voters to vote to repeal the ordinance. Also, several churches
contributed money to the campaign supporting repeal and others provided
assistance to the repeal campaign by providing office space or putting up
campaign signs.
While the involvement of churches in the referendum campaign
was appropriate, it seems in this situation it was inappropriate to use of
churches as polling places. Given the nature of the issue and the referendum
campaign, it is hard to see how on December 9th churches could be
considered neutral places to vote.
The placement of polling places in buildings of
organizations that have taken a public position on an issue raises three
questions:
(1) Does the use of such polling places have an effect on vote results?
The Fayetteville vote showed a big difference in referendum vote results based on the location of polling places, with people who voted in church-located polling sites much more likely to favor repeal of the ordinance. One possible, but unproven, explanation is that a “polling place priming effect” influenced some voters at church-based polling places to support the ordinance repeal.
(2) Is it fair to allow organizations that have taken a public position on or have a stake in the outcome of an election to host a polling site?
If organizations take a vocal and vigorous position on an issue to be decided, are their buildings still neutral sites for voting? Couldn’t knowledge of their stance on the issue encourage some voters to go to polling places located in their buildings while deterring other voters from doing so? When voters are in polling places located in buildings associated with partisans in a referendum, couldn’t they be reminded by visible symbols of the organizations’ position on the issue and, perhaps subconsciously, have their votes influenced?
(3) Is it fair to put polling places in locations that are likely to deter some people from voting?
In regard to using the buildings of religious institutions as polling places, an assortment of voters may not want to go into the buildings of certain churches or religions, even to vote. If the location of polling places inhibits voting, is the election still fair?
It is reasonable to expect that elections will be free and fair, conforming to democratic norms. These standards can be met only if the administration of elections is neutral, providing each voter with a place to vote that is sheltered from partisans who might influence him or her as the ballot is marked. The mechanics of an election, such as the selection of polling places, should not give advantages to particular candidates and should not favor one side of an issue. When they possibly do, as when churches are used as polling places for votes on religious or “moral” issues on which they have taken a stance, questions about the fairness of the election and the legitimacy of vote results must be raised.
FOOTNOTES:
The ordinance can be downloaded from this link:
[2] Several people who supported repeal of the ordinance
suggested that it was the product of outside forces trying to work their will
in Fayetteville. Just as civil rights opponents in the 1950s and 1960s claimed
that the issue was being created by “outside agitators,” mostly communists,
several Chapter 119 opponents blamed the Human Rights Campaign (HRC) for the
ordinance and the controversy surrounding the repeal effort. For example, Greg
Harton, editorial page editor of the
Northwest
Arkansas Times (NWAT), which editorialized against 119, wrote in his
commentary on December 8:
The population was dragged into battling encampments by Alderman Matthew Perry’s sponsorship of the Human Rights Campaign’s so-called civil rights ordinance….
The Human Rights Campaign didn’t tackle a city rife with discrimination. The group didn’t come to Fayetteville because the town is full of bigots, but because it is a place where people generally live and let live….The town still, however, has a streak of Ozark independence and doesn’t always take kindly to being manipulated by an outside influence…Some view this ordinance as Fayetteville being on the cutting edge, at least within Arkansas; others believe the elected leaders have allowed the city to be manipulated to the national organization’s purpose. http://www.nwaonline.com/news/2014/dec/08/commentary-fayetteville-is-t-so-simple
On December 22, he wrote:
Fayetteville Alderman Matthew Perry thought a stand on principle would lead to victory in his effort to pass the Human Rights Campaign’s ideas for how Fayetteville should govern itself. The organization found in Petty a political leader willing to sponsor an ordinance drawn up by national LGBT activists trying to wage a national battle on local battlefields. http://www.nwaonlinecom/news/2014/dec/22/commentary-can-principle-pragmatism-co-/
According to a column in the NWAT by Woody Bassett, a local lawyer: “The blame [for the divided
community and bad publicity] belongs mostly on the shoulders of our city
government, which choose to enact a poorly written and overreaching ordinance
and mistakenly allowed an out-of-state special interest group to use
Fayetteville as a tool to advance its own national political agenda.” See
Woody Bassett. City Can Heal, Find Resolution After Election. NWAT, Dec 18, 2014, p 2a.
Apparently Harton viewed Perry as a simple-minded tool of
the outside agitators (this echoes the widely held view in the South during the
50s and 60s that local Blacks were duped simpletons manipulated by the sinister
NAACP). I guess somehow it did not seem possible to Harton and Bassett that
Perry and other aldermen who supported the measure viewed HRC’s model ordinance
as, with some tweaks, a suitable legislative vehicle to accomplish an end they
saw as desirable. Did the issue change because a particular organization
provided a model ordinance or that it promoted its passage? Or were the
complaints just another aspect of the effort to defeat the ordinance?
Another effort to smear the Human Rights Administration
ordinance, its supporters, and HRC can be seen in a video on the Repeal 119
website. In a video statement by Duncan Campbell, he associated the ordinance
with Terry Bean, a co-founder of HRC and a long-time Democratic political
activist, who had been arrested in the middle of November on charges related to
sex with a 15-year-old male. According to Campbell, it was Bean who “founded”
HRC and who “conceived” of the ordinance (in reality he was one of several
founders and was not involved in the day-to-day work of the HRC). Clearly,
Campbell was using Bean’s arrest to suggest something unsavory about the ordinance
and to smear its supporters.
[3] The Arkansas state legislature passed legislation
(Senate Bill 202) in February 2015 to prohibit local governments in Arkansas
from enacting such ordinances as Fayetteville’s ordinance 5703 in the future.
Because the bill was not signed (or vetoed) by the governor, it becomes law 90
days after the adjournment of the legislative session ends.
Taking advantage of the delay of the law’s implementation,
Eureka Springs passed on February 9th an ordinance similar to
Fayetteville’s, prohibiting discrimination against people based on “real or
perceived” sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, or
socioeconomic background. The city council approved a referendum on ordinance
2223, to be held on May 12th. Travis Story, the Fayetteville
attorney for the Repeal 119 organization, is the attorney for a group in Eureka
Springs called Repeal 2223. See Spencer Williams. Anti-bias-law ban, to end,
goes unsigned. Northwest Arkansas
Democrat-Gazette, February 24, 2015, pp. 1a, 4a and Bill Dowden. Eureka
springs sets vote on its new anti-bias law. Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, February 25, 2015, pp. 1a, 2a.
[4] Ballot question committees are organizations set up
under state law to oppose or support ballot issues. In addition to Repeal 119,
the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce and the Family Council, a Little
Rock-based organization, campaigned in support of repeal of the ordinance.
[5] Joel Walsh, Civil Rights Vote, Supporters: Community
Needs Protection. NWAT, Nov. 30,
2014, p. 1a, 2a.
[5] By law, Ballot Question Committees are required to file
financial reports with the Arkansas Ethics Commission. The reports for both
Repeal 119 and Keep Fayetteville Fair are available on line.
[6] Joel Walsh, Civil Rights Vote, Opponents Cite Religious
Concerns. NWAT, Nov. 30, 2014, p.
5a.
[8] In its advertisements, Repeal 119 included the assertion
that the ordinance was “dangerous to business.” This argument echoed and
supplemented the main talking points of the Fayetteville Chamber of Commerce,
which also supported the Repeal 119 effort. The Chamber bought a full-page
advertisement in the Northwest Arkansas
Times on the Sunday before the referendum to advertise its support for the
repeal of the ordinance because of its putative effects on businesses. The
chamber did not, at least publicly, echo the claims that the ordinance was a
“danger to children and women” and a “danger to religion.”
[9] NWAT, Nov.
30, 2014, p. 1a (see note 6)
[10] NWAT, Nov.
30, 2014, 5a (see note 6)
The use of this argument continued even though the city
council addressed the concerns on August 19th by amending the
ordinance to state that a person was not allowed “to enter any
gender-segregated space for any unlawful purpose.”
[11] Dan Holtmeyer. Campaigns Condemn Sign Slur. NWAT, Dec 3, 2014, p. 2a
[12] See the Repeal 119 website (
http://www.repeal119.com/) for additional
information on the leaders supporting repeal of 119. The site includes videos
supporting repeal by:
*Charles
Flowers, pastor of Faith Outreach Center International in San Antonio, TX.
*Dave Welch, director of the
Houston Area Pastor Council.
*H.D. McLarty, long-time Baptist
pastor in Fayetteville (described on the site as “Pastor of the Razorbacks for
30 years”)
*Jeremy Flanagan, pastor of the
Pathway Baptist Church in Fayetteville.
*Jerry Cox, director of the Little
Rock-based Family Council, a religion-based anti-abortion and anti-gay lobbying
group. This group actively campaigned
against 119 through telephone calls to Fayetteville voters.
*Carolynn Long, apparently a local
celebrity based on her television appearances in Fayetteville over several
decades
[13] Joel Walsh. Special Election Today. NWAT. Dec. 9, 2014, p. 2a.
[14] Matthew Petty. Let’s Keep Fayetteville Fair, NWAT, Nov. 30, 2012, p. 5b.
[15] NWAT, Nov.
30, 2014, 5a (see note 6)
[16] Petty, p. 5b (see note 14).
[17] See the financial reports for Repeal 119 and Keep
Fayetteville Fair at the web site of the Arkansas Ethics Commission (
http://www.arkansasethics.com/ )
[18] Dan Holtmeyer. Church Polls Raise Questions. NWAT, December 14, 2014, pp. 1a, 7a
[19] They
might be upset if their polling place were in, for example, a Church of
Scientology. According to the Hollywood
Reporter, voters in a district in Los Angeles voted in the Hollywood
headquarters of the Church of Scientology in the 2014 general election. The
newspaper reported:
If some Los Angeles residents wanted to vote in Tuesday's
midterm elections, there were required to enter the Church of
Scientology's mammoth blue Hollywood headquarters to do so.
Voters living in the 90029 zip code area were first required
to pass several Scientology members handing out promotional leaflets at the
corner of Sunset Boulevard and Vermont Avenue.
They then walked down a long pathway to the entrance of the
building at 4810 Sunset, one voter tells The Hollywood Reporter,
where they were instructed by a church member to descend a set of stairs.
Along the way, voters were made to pass several framed
posters. One beckoned to "attend a Scientology Sunday service."
Another featured the silhouetted image of a man staring out at a sunlit path,
promising that attendees of a "Happiness Rundown" would
"flourish and prosper and live a happier life." http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/church-scientologys-la-headquarters-serving-746485
[20] Thanks to the Washington County Election Commission
staff for providing the vote results by polling place and for responding to
questions about how to understand them.
[21] Northwest
Arkansas Times, December 14, 2014, p. 1a, 17 (see note 18]
[23] “In 1991 Frank Otero, an atheist running for mayor of
Miami, Oklahoma brought suit against Oklahoma challenging the use of churches
as polling places (Otero v. State
Election Board of Oklahoma 975 F.2d 738 (Sept. 1992)). Otero argued that
the use of churches as polling places harmed his campaign by increasing the
chance that voters will think about religion when voting. A year later, in
Florida, Jerry Rabinowitz filed suit because in the church where he voted there
were “pro-life” banners and various religious symbols and sayings which he felt
could bias voter’s choices (Rabinowitz v. Anderson Case No. 06-81117 Civ.). In
both cases, the courts failed to find evidence that voting at churches taints
elections.”
Appendix 1
Research on the
Impact of Location Cues on Voters
Assertions that the location of a polling place can
influence voters’ choices are based on research on how external cues or stimuli
can influence behavior. This research has found that certain cues prime (or
nudge) behavior, often even when people are not consciously aware of them. For
example, one study showed that individuals behave more aggressively when in the
presence of a weapon, even when the task is unrelated to it. Another study has shown that playing French
classical music in a wine store resulted in increased sales of French wine
while playing German classical music in the same store increased sales of
German wine. Summaries of these studies and other examples on the priming
effect are found in Blumental and Turnipseed (2011, pp. 563-565), Glas (2014,
pp 2 – 7), and Pryor, Mendez and Herrik (2011, pp. 58-62).
Drawing on the general literature concerning priming
effects, some researchers have applied the findings to elections, suggesting
that the location of a polling place can, under certain circumstances, affect
decisions made by some voters. The two most-hypothesized effects of location on
voting decisions are (1) if a polling
place is in a school, voters there are more likely to vote favorably on
proposals, such as tax increases and bond issues, to improve schools, and (2)
if a polling place is in a church, voters at that location are more likely to
vote for conservative candidates and to be influenced by “religious’ or “moral
arguments” when contentious social issues (e.g., alcohol, gambling, abortion,
gay rights etc.) are on the ballot. In both cases, the locational effects are
expected to be marginal, influencing a small number of voters.
These two hypothesized relationships between polling places
and voting results have been investigated in recent years by a small number of
researchers. When researching the effects of voting in a polling place located
in school, researchers have consistently found that the polling place
marginally affected voting results. Using different methodologies to analyze
voting results in several different states, researchers have identified a small
priming effect: holding other things
equal, a larger percentage of voters who cast their votes in schools, compared
to voters who voted in other locations, favored proposals that would benefit
schools. These studies include: Berger, Meredith, and Wheeler (2008),
Rutchick (2010), Glas 2011, and Pryor, Mendez, and Herrick (2011, 2014)
Research has been less conclusive when the hypothesis is
that voting at polling places located in churches influences votes on moral or
religious issues. The first research on the topic (Ruthick 2010) found an
effect that Blumenthal and Turnipseed (2011) labeled, in a Boston College Law Review article, the “Polling Place Priming
Effect.”
Rutchick’s (2010) work, published in Political Psychology, examined votes cast at different types of
polling places in South Carolina’s sixth congressional district. First, he examined votes in a congressional
election in which a conservative Republican challenged an incumbent
Democrat. Then, he analyzed votes on a
proposal to amend the South Carolina constitution to state that marriage is
legal only between a man and a woman.
Controlling for age, race, gender, and party affiliation, he found that
the Republican candidate and the constitutional amendment got greater
percentages of the vote in polling places located in churches than in other
polling places. His concluded that voting in churches was “associated with
support for…a conservative constitutional amendment, but only if the amendment
was relevant to Christian values.”
Based on this research by Rutchick (2010) and related
research by Berger, Meredith, and Wheeler (2008), Blumenthal and Turnipseed
(2011) suggested that when people vote at polls in churches, they are
influenced by cues or stimuli associated with the location. According to them,
“a non-trivial percentage of the population is affected on an unconscious level
by voting in churches.” (p. 563)
However, research published after Rutchick’s journal article
has been at best ambiguous on whether voting in a church polling place affects
votes. In some of the research, the hypothesis has been rejected.
In his 2011 master’s thesis for Georgia State University,
Jeffery Glas analyzed the effect of polling place location on votes cast in
California’s 2008 general election on various ballot initiatives. He analyzed
votes on two social issues: (1) a requirement that parents or guardians be
notified before a minor could have an abortion and (2) a constitutional
amendment prohibiting same-sex marriages. In both cases, the percentage vote
for the proposal was greater in churches than in other locations, but the
differences between the vote results were not statistically significance. These
results provide some weak support for the hypothesis of the effect of location
on votes, but was not as conclusive as Rutchick’s study or the research of the
effect voting in schools on vote results.
S.R. Daniel, in papers for the American Political Science
Association (2011) and the Midwest Political Science Association (2012) annual
meetings, also analyzed the effect of voting in churches on the 2008 Prop 8
results in California. Using a
structural equation model to test for the effect of voting in churches on votes
for Proposition 8 (prohibiting gay marriage, he found, after controlling for
numerous factors, including education and precinct conservatism, no independent
impact; that is, his model did not find a significant effect on polling place
on voter’s decisions. However, the power of the model was diminished because
his data mixed precinct voting data with county-wide social and demographic
data.
Two studies by Pryor, Mendez, and Herrick (2011, 2014) also
did not find that voting in churches influenced voters in way that was
hypothesized. Their 2011 study examined
a referendum in the 2004 general election in Oklahoma on a proposal to prohibit
gay marriage. The researchers found that voters who cast their votes in
churches were not more likely to support the proposal; instead, they were more
likely to oppose it.
The second study analyzed votes in the 2012 general election
on proposals in Maine, Maryland, and Minnesota to either allow or prohibit same
sex marriage. Again, their analysis found voters who their voted at polling
places in churches were not more likely that voters at secular locations to
support limitations on same sex marriage. As in their first study, they found
that such voters were more likely to oppose it.
The consistent results showing that voting in schools has a
marginal effect on vote results supports the assertions about the existence of
a polling place priming effect. However, the mixed results of the research on
the effect of voting in churches leaves open the question of whether voting in
churches has a consistent polling place priming effect. The amount of research on the topic is still
quite small, and each study has its strengths and weaknesses. None, singly or
together, is conclusive. Thus, research to date is insufficient to either
strongly support or reject hypotheses about the existence of the influence of
church polling places on voters.
Sources consulted:
Berger, Jonah, M Meredith, and SC Wheeler. 2008.
Contextual Priming: Where People Vote
Affects How They Vote. Proceedings of the National Academy of Science of
the United States, 105: 8846-8849.
http://www.pnas.org/content/105/26/8846.full
Daniels, R. Steven. 2012.
Voting Context and Vote Choice: The Impact of Balloting in Churches on
Voting for California Proposition 8. Paper presented at the Western
Political Science Association Annual Meeting.
http://wpsa.research.pdx.edu/meet/2012/daniels.pdf
LaBouff, Jordan, Wade Rowatt, Megan Johnson, and Callie
Finkle. 2012. Differences in Attitudes towards Outgroups in Religious and
Non-Religious Contexts in a Mult-National Sample: A Situational Context Priming
Study. International Journal for the
Psychology of Religion, 22, pp. 1-9.
Pryor, Ben, Jeanette M. Mendez, and Rebekah Herrick. 2014.
Let’s Be Fair: Do Polling Locations Prime Votes? Journal of Political Science and Public Affairs (open access), Vol.
2 (3), p. 126.
Rutchick, Abraham. 2010. Deux ex Machina: The Influence of
Polling Place on Voting Behavior. Political
Psychology, 31 (2): 209-225
Appendix 2: Map of Vote Results
Postcard Title: The Kiss
Postdate: Unknown (likely May)
