California Proposition 8: County Perspectives

By Alexander Martos

Limited LGBT Data

Census only has data for same sex households• Not representative of entire

populationProblems in data collection• Still very taboo• People do not readily admit

sexual minority status• Varying definitions of “sexual

minority”BUT we do have something…• Proposition 8 outcomes by

County• And of course, same sex

households (those most impacted by outcome)

Step 1: The Basics

So. What about party affiliations?

Highlighting the Inconsistencies

L.A. County

• Voted for Obama• Liberal?

•Voted for Prop. 8• Conservative?

•More than double the same-sex households than any other county

• Only about .6% of the voting population

…what now?

Arguments

1. Collect more data!2. Consider position outside of party affiliation– This should not be political, but personal

This concludes my Midterm presentation.

Thank you for your time!

To be continued…at the Final presentation.

Skills Used• Geoprocessing

– Clip Feature• Inset Map• Graduated Symbols• Aggregating Attribute Fields

– Joining Male and Female Same-Sex households in Excel to obtain “Total Same-Sex Households”

• Creating Indices– (Total Population Over 18) / (Total Same-Sex Households x 2) = (Percent

of Voting Population)• Boundary Sub-set Selection

– Displaying Los Angeles County inconsistencies