Charleston County on gay marriage

South Carolina reconfirmed its identity as a bastion of cultural conservatism Tuesday, with 78 percent of voters favoring an anti-gay marriage amendment to the state constitution. Like what seemed like a lot of people around here, I opposed it. It made me wonder: Where were those 78 percent living?

This morning I took a quick look at the voting figures by county and precinct (hmmm, analyzing election returns in detail might make for an interesting story, que no?) to get a snapshot out of how that vote broke down. And it told me one thing for sure: that big anti-gay majority doesn't control my town.

At the county level, the Marriage Amendment passed in Charleston County with about 65 percent of the vote. Congratulations, Charleston County: our corresponding 35 percent "no" vote on Question 1 was the highest recorded in the state. Thirty-one thousand of the 230,000 "no" votes in South Carolina came from here.

But where did those "no" votes come from? Answer: The middle of the peninsula.

Generally speaking, the lower your Charleston precinct number, the more expensive your home is. Precincts Nos. 1 and 2 are distinctly S.O.B. precincts ("South of Broad" street, the demarcation line of money, class and status in our city). For outsiders, it's generally true to say that the city gets poorer and blacker as the precinct numbers rise through the teens.

Now, look at these Charleston precinct percentages for votes against the Marriage Amendment (precincts in bold face rejected it):

Charleston 1:             40.34 percent
Charleston 2:             41.61 percent
Charleston 3:       53.54 percent
Charleston 4:       58.20 percent
Charleston 5:       59.82 percent
Charleston 6:       56.99 percent
Charleston 7:       63.64 percent
Charleston 8:            38.28 percent
Charleston 9:             48.58 percent
Charleston 10:     69.80 percent
Charleston 11:      71.55 percent
Charleston 12:         49.43 percent
Charleston 13:     52.52 percent
Charleston 14:     55.97 percent
Charleston 15:            45.16 percent
Charleston 16:             39.60 percent
Charleston 17:     53.73 percent
Charleston 18:             43.73 percent
Charleston 19:              49.41 percent
Charleston 20:      54.61 percent
Charleston 21:              35.90 percent

I don't have time to do a full breakout analysis this morning, but there's all sorts of things we could learn from this.  Thing No. 1 is this: the heart of peninsular Charleston voted against this amendment. Thing No. 2 is this observation: There seemed to be a correlation between low voter turn-out and support for the Marriage Amendment.  Thing No. 3 is: I'll bet if I were to go back through this list and add up votes, the Amendment would have failed in urban Charleston.

How many other parts of the state can make the same claim?

NOON UPDATE: By my count of the unofficial returns, peninsular Charleston rejected the Marriage Amendment by 108 votes. I haven't done anything to verify this yet, and the canvassed returns aren't posted yet.

12:30 UPDATE: Folly Beach's two precincts each rejected the amendment, by a combined total of 25 votes, perhaps making it the only incorporated municipality in the state to reject the amendment. Congratulations to the Edge of America!

Comments

[MJ Dellucci]

I am not sure that we can jump up and celebrate over the number of 'no' votes on this amendment. Half of the people I spoke with as we were waiting to vote were voting NO because they thought that meant that there would be NO gay marriages allowed.

Now what does that tell you?

MJ