In the spirit of me getting a talking to because I too readily engage in political discussions with my customers (who wear their Presidential preference on their sleeves and come to me making comments about the economy),…

Surprise!

According to the San Jose Mercury News, Asian Americans are “overwhelmingly against banning gay marriage.” Really? I’m so surprised! I’ve always known that I was on the more liberal side of the spectrum, but I’ve always thought Asian Americans were more conservative than other ethnic voter groups. A number of conditions led to this assumption: recent immigration, religious ideals, un-Americanized parents – You just wouldn’t expect the arguably most underrepresented of American minorities to be for gay marriage, would you?

With all the confusion in reading coverage about support and opposition for and against propositions that ban or allow things, I had to read the first few paragraphs a couple of times before I could have a cohesive conversation with Reenee Online about it. But yes, AAs, at least according to that study, are against banning gay marriage.

Another surprise? The Asian Americans who were polled (by Berkeley, UC Riverside, USC, and Rutgers) reported more support for Barack Obama than for John McCain – They almost doubled the amount support! That’s pretty fascinating to me. Go, us. I just wish the Obama-Biden ticket threw more support behind same-sex marriage as well.

In my dream November 4th, the Asian Americans polled in this study will vote the way they said they would.

So, readers, since WordPress just introduced its PollDaddy integration, how would you vote?

For more interesting perspectives on gay marriage (from a largely liberal standpoint), I encourage you to check out these articles:

• Tolerance is For Drugs; Rights Are For Humans
  by Taii K. Austin of Huffington Post

I replaced any reference to homosexual relationships with references to interracial relationships. Just to see — as a straight, black woman — how it would feel if they were talking about me.

IFILL: Governor, would you support expanding [benefits for interracial couples] beyond Alaska to the rest of the nation?

PALIN: Well, not if it goes closer and closer towards redefining the traditional definition of marriage between a white man and a white woman. And unfortunately that’s sometimes where those steps lead.

• An Open Letter to My Gay Friend; or Gay Marriage Is Not About Marriage
  by Prince Gomolvilas of Bamboo Nation

I’ve always been weary of same-sex marriage being the cause célèbre of the gay community. But the issue of marriage equality is something I have to support because gay marriage is not about marriage.

Arguments against same-sex marriage, at their core, have never been about the institution itself. They’re fundamentally about homosexuality. So if you look underneath the shiny surface, “preserving the sanctity of marriage” is not the real issue—the aim is to attack sexual orientation, to disapprove of sexual identity, and to legalize discrimination, which is far more insidious and which will set this country back decades.