I think the thing that upsets me most about Prop 8 passing is that the Yes on 8 people just bald-faced lied to the people of California to get their way. I got at least three robocalls claiming that Obama supported Prop 8 when he was actually opposed to it.

And that's leaving aside the "churches will be forced to marry gay couples!" and "children will be taught about teh buttsex in schools!" lies that should have been laughable on their face but they managed to make them work anyway.

It's hard to fight against a proposition when your opponents have no scruples and cheerfully lie about everything having to do with their prop.

Very upset today.

Slow your roll. There are between 3-4 million uncounted votes in CA still. Early voters who voted from 10/28-11/3, absentee voters who dropped off their ballots at a polling place yesterday, and those who filled out a provisional ballot have not been counted. Most early voting was breaking hard to the left nationwide, so there is still hope for defeating CA's Constitutional Mistake.

The Yes on 8 people spent a ton of money on misleading ads that distorted the issues and seemed to say children would be at risk. It was a slickly packaged attack that wasn't opposed until too late. My own feeling is that it will fail the court challenges that are already being planned and filed. Taking away constitutional rights should not be a majority-rules game, and the haters will never get a two-thirds vote to strip rights from our brothers and sisters.

Weirdly, LA County, Ventura County and Orange county all PASSED the amendment to "define" marriage as hetero and whatnot.

What the fuzz. (I live in SF thankfully).

What happened in LA? Churchgoing blacks and hispanics? White-ass republicans? The central valley might as well be Texas, but jeez, LA?

"Support for same-sex marriage has obviously grown in California, but just not quite enough"

Disagree. I live in California and there are a lot of factors heavily influencing this, like $25 million or more in Mormon money coming in to support this from Utah, a terribly mismanaged opposition effort, and uninformed (sometimes misinformed) black and latino voters who were voting for Obama but would not normally turn out to vote for this prop.

Think how well Obama ran his campaign to deliver a victory. If the folks in charge of the no-on-8 efforts were that good it would have been defeated IMO.

"Taking away constitutional rights should not be a majority-rules game"

Right on. "Democracy" does not mean "mob rule".

flubber,

Not a Californian but I'm under the impression Orange County is literally the most Republican county in American by the numbers (not by percentage).

Also, it does appear that a lot of the Yes votes did in fact come from African-American Obama supporters.

Homophobia remains the last acceptable form of bigotry. I would like to see that end in my lifetime.

Amen, Piper.

It crushed me every day to see more and more "yes on 8" signs cropping up in my neighborhood. That people felt comfortable displaying their bigotry and wish to deny civil rights to people was devastating. It reminds me of the people who put their racism right out on display during the civil rights movement.

This puts a damper on the Obama win. It's not so much that it was passed, but being a Texan I like to think Californians can not be over-powered by the unscrupulous people carrying bibles. Some of that hope I have been carrying all day, dissipated.

California has had a long list of culture war amendments. Everything from Gays, English only, Illegal Immigrants, Affirmative Action, etc.

It wouldn't be an election here without one or two hot button issues like that.

>"Yes on 8 people spent a ton of money on misleading ads "

I've never seen such saturation advertising before... for anything.

Flipping through cable channels the ads were running nearly continuously on one channel or another over the last week. Even got a robocall at 7pm on the evening of election day.

I thought one part of the (main) add was hysterical... some guy in a purple robe very earnestly asking... what to do when gay marriage "inteferes with our religous freedoms".

Inteferes with religous freedom? Like WTF?

The passage of Prop 8 is indeed disappointing, as is any time discrimination is written into a constitution. I believe upwards of 70 million was spent by both sides on this one and the ads for Prop 8 were despicable and relentless. I had to look at a Yes on Prop 8 sign on my next door neighbors lawn for the last month in a half and it was a true test of my patience.
As for Orange County, I heard on NPR yesterday that there are now more registered Democrats than Republicans in Orange County due to this last Presidential campaign.

Like Prop 8, in Florida, we had Amendment 2, which defined marriage as between 1 man and 1 woman.

Not only did it pass, as broad and vaguely worded, it also outlawed domestic partnership benefits for heteros too. It will affect thousands of elderly Floridians. I know this sounds shitty, but I hope it affects some of the
old bible thumpers who unwittingly voted for it.

My teenager lost her very good health insurance as a result of this hateful legislation.

I, for one, welcome our Mormon overlords. And hope they do not choose to outlaw my family next.

[sigh] Florida too. Proposition 2 defines marriage as a "union between a man and a woman". Because it was a constitutional amendment, they needed 60% to pass it. Guess what? They got it. And gay marriage is already against the law. Barack and then this. One step forward, two steps back. Apparently the large number of African Americans who voted for Obama also voted against this measure in large part.

Us hets all have gay friends, and if you don't know it you either don't have enough friends and/or they are not telling. Personally this one is a no-brainer and the argument shouldn't even mention religion. That's for individual religious organizations to decide for themselves. Separation of church and state, anyone?

I haven't followed the Prop 8 "debate" from MN but know from all the personal and robocalls I received (2 Democratic, I couldn't even guess how many Republican) which side was willing to use inexactitude, untruth, propaganda and scare to a greater degree. Same on TV.

I don't think you can enact retrospective law. Well, except Congress for FISA and Bush but remains untested. And I'm not sure that you can make law that differentiates unfairly between individuals or groups of people as compared to society as a whole. We do differentiate a lot on age, but what on sexual orientation? I suppose a church might retrospectively nullify, but the contract should stand in civil law.

Oh, this one will go to the Supreme Court. Interesting.

God damnit, I don't know whether I'm gay married or not! I say we change the tax status of the LDS polygamists and the rotten, evil Catholics who poured money into my state and revoked my civil rights under the (state) constitution and tax their fucking asses into oblivion. We got married in 2002, we got married on Friday (Halloween).. Am I going to have to marry the same man 3 fucking times? Mormons on bikes had best pay extra attention on surface streets, that's all I'm going to say about that.

Not only did it pass, as broad and vaguely worded, it also outlawed domestic partnership benefits for heteros too.

Ironically, one of the arguments the Yes on 8 people were using here was that California has very strong domestic partner laws, so gay people didn't really need marriage and were just being whiny babies.

Is it possible that many relatively uninformed voters thought a yes vote meant yes to gay marriage? It seems odd that CA, which is thought of as quite liberal by the rest of the country, should rescind something so obviously in their best interests.

Just wonderering.

I'm not sure how this can affect gay couples who are already married. Law can not be passed ex-post-facto. If they already have a legal marriage license, taking it away with a law passed after the fact should be illegal.

Yes ArtEclectic, it will be difficult for me to talk to my neighbor now that they've so flaunted their bigotry. Two signs on their lawn, one as close to our property line as possible.
The ads here in Ca. went something like this:
It will be Mandatory to teach about gay marriage in schools. Churches will be forced to marry gay couples, yada yada. Complete and utter bullshit. Even Arnold S. was doing ads opposing Prop 8.
Alot of energy and money wasted on suppression.

Gay rights hopes in California are not yet dead!

It's a temporary setback. We're steadily winning the culture war.

Conservatives accuse gays and liberals of having a gay agenda or a liberal agenda. It's true, we do, and they're very similar. Both gay and liberal agendas want legalization of gay marriage and liberalization of abortion rights. We want anti-discrimination legislation to include homosexual, trannies, and such in housing and jobs and not being beat up. We want the fact that being gay is one of the biological ways to be to be taught in school. And so on.

And we're winning because we're right. Enough people eventually find the true, and, as Colbert and his writers nearly said, truth has a well-known liberal agenda.

I just realized Prop 8 doesn't say gay marriages can't be performed in California, only that they aren't valid or recognized here. They could be performed here and be valid in, say, Oregon or Massachusetts, or maybe even for federal purposes, once DOMA is rescinded.

Is it possible that many relatively uninformed voters thought a yes vote meant yes to gay marriage? It seems odd that CA, which is thought of as quite liberal by the rest of the country, should rescind something so obviously in their best interests.

California's reputation as a liberal state is overblown. Most of the eastern part of the state is deep red territory.

The only reason the Democrats are in power is that the California Republican Party keeps insisting on running wacky pro-life candidates for governor. Schwarzenegger was not their choice -- he was Enron's choice.

(Disclaimer: born in the capital of CA, lifelong resident - this is MY state)

Damn you California, damn all you half-witted assholes and fundie rejects. You sicken me so that I hiccup in ways I do not particularly enjoy. I have half a mind to just start slapping your sorry asses, each and every one of you I see, starting tomorrow, especially these orthodox (?) wackjobs infesting my hometown, who tragically ironically would seem to be present as a result of fleeing religous persecution of some sort, and who, apparently not sufficiently entertained by JB-welding wrecked Corollas together and chain-smoking cigarettes, clogged each and every main intersection out here in the cracker suburbs, armed with a dizzying array of hand-crafted signs that displayed the most creative use of varying-size and right-upwards-sweeping fonts. I barely resisted pretending I didn't see you there in the crosswalk this time, and I doubt I'll even try next time. Stay home tomorrow.

The best answer is that the state should get completely out of the marriage business.

All 'legal' aspects of domestic partnerships (whatever they might be) should be covered under 'civil unions'.

Leave 'marriage' to religon... and let them define it any bloody way they want.

Surely a citizen's initiative cannot act as a third party to divorce thousands of legally married Californians.

NickC:

uninformed (sometimes misinformed) black and latino voters who were voting for Obama but would not normally turn out to vote for this prop.

No need to patronize black and brown voters; many of them are deeply homophobic, Bible-thumping fundies too, and knew exactly what they were voting for.

I was pleasantly surprised by my fellow Michiganians, who passed props allowing medicinal marijuana and stem-cell research.

Well, I guess the gays and lesbians now know that they officially rank below what we now term "people of color." Looks like there won't be any of you elected to high office any time soon.

What a shame. I'm a native Californian, now retired out of the state, and I thought this piece of shit proposition would go down easily. Everybody I know in California—family and friends—voted against it. I guess no one took the Kansas people in the Central Valley and the rightwing assholes in SoCal into account.

As I told a guy at a party tonight when the subject came up, I don't give a shit if you want to marry your favorite sheep. If it doesn't cost me any money, I don't care. And then we discussed the history of marriage. The government is in it only because they get dough for the licenses. Marriage is a church construct, done for the purpose of dividing property. All of the mystical BS, with a witch doctor of your choice chanting whatever is just that: BS. Marriage is a contractual, legal thing, not something sent from down on high from GOD. So far as I can tell, there were no marriages back in the days when GOD roamed the earth. Curious about that, too. GOD was everywhere 2K years ago, but he doesn't seem to have much interest in showing up since then.

Interesting. Back when GOD was omnipresent, GOD didn't seem to much care about who slept with whom, and whether there was some sort of ceremony or legal stuff attached to it. Now, all these years later, GOD, whom we haven't seen since GOD-knows-when, somehow disapproves of boys hooking up with boys or girls hooking up with girls.

Works for me. I mean, shit, these people saying that Gay marriage is bad all have a direct phone line or Internet connection with GOD. Me, I haven't heard from GOD lately and I don't have those connections So I guess I'll just have to take their word for it. Yep, GOD doesn't like you folks who want to be with folks of the same sex.

That's why Prop 8 passed. Because of rational people like me.

The truly unfortunate statistic about the Prop 8 vote in California is that 75% of white and Asian voters voted "no," as did 50% of Latino voters. Black voters went 80% "yes," and put this denial of rights and promotion of bigotry over the top. It was the extra black turnout for Obama that gave victory to this subtraction of human rights.

You don't have to be gay to think that's not right.

Got legal limbo troubles? Not sure you and your honey are still married? Fed up with wingnuts telling you what they think is good for you?

MOVE TO MASSACHUSETTS. It's really much nicer here anyway. Less smog. Actual snow in the winter. Way fewer Really Odd Religions. Still plenty of high-tech jobs. Harvard. MIT. Patriots. Celtics. Bruins. Red Sox, if you like that sort of thing.

Come on in. It'll help the real estate market.

To recap: CA voters protected (in Prop. 2) the rights of egg-laying hens, veal calves and pregnant pigs but not gay HUMANS.

Ridiculous ridiculousness.

Mormon money bought this one and record black turnout for Obama contributed (sadly enough). Really striking divide in CA of the coast vs. inland counties. The courts will stay busy with this until the rematch in 2 years and the re-rematch 2 years after that and so on until generational change finally puts it to rest and makes it a non-issue. It's heartbreakingly too bad...CA could have pushed the nation forward by 10-20 years.

To me, this proposition is clearly a Bill of Attainder and is unconstitutional. It deprives a rather sizeable segment of American citizens of rights and privileges. This "proposition" was ubconstitutional on its face and should never have been brought to a vote. The courts should overturn these "pro-life" and homophobe propositions once and for all.

A comprehensive equal rights amendment should not be needed, but the religious whackjobs keep pressing the issue, and common sense never prevails.

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Thanks for flipping the language, Steve:

a ballot initiative that would have forced women to carry pregnancies to term against their will at the risk of their physical and psychological health.

It's exactly the right way to think about it.

Nixon at 12:41

Well, I guess the gays and lesbians now know that they officially rank below what we now term "people of color."

There was a legislative question on the ballot concerning the humane caging of farm animals. It passed. More people voted to protect the welfare of sheep and cows than to protect a human beings constitutional rights.

"People of color," hell. LGBT people in California officially rank somewhere under livestock.