“We need to take a lesson from the (lesbian and gay) community with regard to being that loud, squeaky wheel that gets fixed,” Blase said. “We need to be more aggressive, and we realize it.”
Both the Democratic and Republican parties are focused heavily on winning the Hispanic vote, not just because it holds the key to battleground states but because Latinos make up the fastest-growing minority group. The government projects Hispanics will account for roughly 30 percent of the population by 2050, doubling in size and boosting their political power. Some 600,000 young Hispanics who were born in the U.S. turn 18 each year to enter a widening pool of more than 21 million Hispanic eligible voters.
Conservative Hispanics see the president’s endorsement of same-sex marriage as an opportunity to draw Latinos to the Republican Party. According to a 2007 religion survey of U.S. Latinos by the Pew Research Center’s Forum on Religion & Public Life, two-thirds of Hispanics said their religious beliefs are an important influence on their political thinking. While more than two-thirds of Hispanics identified themselves as Roman Catholic, 15 percent said they were born-again Protestants. Evangelical Latinos, who cite Biblical teaching for their stance against homosexuality, are twice as likely as those who are Catholic to vote Republican.
While George W. Bush won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, by 2008, 67 percent of the Hispanic vote had swung toward Obama. And that vote was pivotal to his success in states like Colorado, where exit polls show Republican Sen. John McCain would have won if only Caucasians had voted.
For many young Hispanics, both immigrant and U.S.-born, the DREAM Act — the proposed legislation would make students who entered the country without authorization as children eligible for permanent residency and higher education — is a key issue. Obama supports the proposal, while Romney’s hard line against the measure, which he has called a handout, has alienated many Hispanic voters. The Pew Hispanic Center found in a December 2011 survey that 91 percent support the legislation.
Juan Rodriguez, who is active in the Florida Immigrant Coalition and an immigrant himself, said the gay rights and immigrant rights movements are “very aligned and becoming moreso every year.
The co-president of Blase’s Tequila Party, Shara Mora James is gay. And two so-called Dreamers, or leaders in the movement to pass DREAM Act, have recently taken over two emerging gay rights groups, Freedom to Work and Get Equal.
“The immigrant rights movement is grounded on advocating with the most oppressed out of our community, and in many cases, that has been queer undocumented youth,” said Rodriguez. “We are figuring out more and more ways of supporting each other because we all grew up being told we needed to live in fear because of the communities we love.”
Hispanic leaders and political watchers say they don’t expect Obama’s announcement to have much impact on the Latino vote, which could be key to victory in battleground states like New Mexico, Florida, Nevada and Colorado.
“No, no, no, no, no. It’s not going to affect my vote,” said Sister “Molly” Maria Luisa Munoz, a Roman Catholic nun in Denver who works with immigrants and the gay and lesbian community. “My mother straightened us out right away,” she said. “God made everybody. How we came out? That’s God’s creation. Nobody should judge.”
At Barela’s Coffee House in Albuquerque’s predominantly Hispanic South Valley, manager Geri Lucero said when the talk turns to politics there, it’s almost always about the economy.
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