CNN's exit polls reveal that 27% of the self-identified lesbian, gay, and bisexual voters they surveyed indicated that they voted for John McCain. This of course is only a sample of people who were willing to disclose their non-heterosexual identity -- but we might expect that this would be a more liberal sample than a "true" sample of all LGB people. I'm not sure about that, though.

In any case, it's pretty shocking news to me. I knew there were some LGB McCain supporters out there. I wish the data was chunked into L/G/B subcategories. I would expect that not many lesbians voted McCain. But hey, what do I know? I did see a few folks on Gay.com promoting McCain in their profiles. So I guess anything is possible! Oy.

I think this is just further evidence that gay is -- for many Americans -- no longer a political identity. Because of extreme discrimination, it used to mark folks in a way that produced radical political responses. But as homophobia becomes less extreme and more subtle, gay identity becomes less politicized in and of itself. This of course translates into a need for progressive political organizing that does not begin with identity (woman / Black / gay), but rather with progressive values for change. Complicating this further, though, is the fact that in many contexts (rural areas everywhere, the South generally, Texas, etc), homophobia's still pretty violent and still produces a context for useful LGBT political organizing. But in most large metro areas, this is no longer fruitful I think.

(Via Towleroad)