46 percent voted for a candidate whose contempt-riddled running mate watches Putin rear his head over the airspace above her house.

So a 10 percent bloc of hateful idiocy seems kind of low, actually. It's the 46 percent Strategic Ignorance Coalition that is more a cause for concern in the long run.

"Only 15% of Americans believe there aren't enough Republicans in the next administration's cabinet."

And every one of them is a bobblehead on T.V.

The real hospital / health care question is about who can make health care decisions on behalf of someone unable to make them on their own. "Next of kin" means someone related by blood, marriage, or adoption. Marriage confers next of kin rights by definition. The person you've lived with for 15 years but to whom you are not married, whether same gender or opposite gender, is not legally your next of kin, no matter how intimate the relationship. Such couples need a medical power of attorney, and need to be able to produce the documentation, to make health care decisions for one another.

Hospital visitation privileges are more a function of the policies of the hospital than of the law. I'm a minister who has visited people in several hosptials in several states. In my experience, most hospitals would consider a same-sex partner a friend and would not turn that person away for a visit.

Inheritance rights, access to health and employee benefits, access to Social Security benefits, authority to make health care decisions, and other "next of kin" benefits are conferred automatically upon marriage. Go figure.

thanks for the post, steve.

and excellent observations jpeckjr.

Hang on just a little while longer, brothers and sisters, people are getting it! I know you shouldn't have to wait at all, but attitudes are changing quickly.

Among the 10% hate often disguises itself as compassionate tough love! -Kevo

Pretty sure the 10% are the ones who think gays and lesbians should be stoned to death in the town square.

Has there been any research regarding people voting yes on proposition 6 because they assumed yes meant they were for it?

I still can't believe it didn't pass in California!

The good news is, changes are coming. The bad news is, they will come at the state, not national, level. As a result, states in the northeast and Pacific west, where social attitudes are more enlightened, will reap the economic advantages of this and become even more wealthy. The midwest and south will suffer even more, and our nationwide gap will keep widening.

Dorothy - I live in CA and voted NO on Prop 8. To answer your question (at least somewhat), the main reason that it passed appears to have been because of Blacks and Latinos voting for it. Most socio/ethno/economic groups split fairly evenly on the issue. However, Blacks and Latinos voted about 70% in favor of it. I think that has more to do with evangelical/Catholic issues than not understanding the Yes/No vote IMHO.

I wonder if Newsweek asked in 2000 if there were enough Democrats in the Bush administration.

Or does the question answer itself?

I have to wonder at the source of this sudden surge. And where the hell was it two months ago?

Today I tried to explain to my mom what it's like to be gay. I told her about the little things, like walking down the street not holding your loved one's hand for fear that someone will harass you, throw something, threaten you, follow you home, or assault you and try to kill you. All because they don't like who you're holding hands with. As a straight white woman, she couldn't comprehend living like that.

Good point on that 10% and hospital visitation, Steve. Something to think about: gay people of color and transgender/intersex people have it worse than I do as a white woman. Example: If my partner got sick and the nurses at the ER were homophobic "christians," I guarantee that they would get out of my way when I came through the door in a conservative skirt and pumps, with a briefcase of documentation, saying, "These documents make me the patient's legal next of kin. If you have questions or problems, you can call my lawyer." I bring an aura of resourced white privilege ready to sue their hateful asses back to the Stone Age if they give me trouble. I guarantee that a person of color or genderqueer would have seventeen times the problems getting in that I would.

Homer,

Please stop pushing that "Blacks are responsible" meme. It's false and it's tired and it promotes more racist hate. 70% of Black voters equals a small margin without which Prop 8 would have passed anyway. Here's Nate Silver's numbers breakdown:

http://www.fivethirtyeight.com/2008/11/prop-8-myths.html

Want to blame someone? Blame christians. They're the ones who funded the whole thing to begin with and continue to push hate as their way of life.

I think that people who have gotten divorces in this country should not be allowed to vote on gay marriage rights. Consider it a waver on their expertise of the matter.

@Mick.

Cute point, but it does raise this question: What is the polling on marriage equality among folks by marital status. Are divorced people more or less supportive of marriage rights than those who have never had a divorce?

It's one thing far-right folks to hesitate when it comes to gay people getting married, but if they're not even comfortable letting gay people visit their partners in the hospital, their hatred has blinded them to any sense of morality.

Note that it's only an issue because there are hospitals--run by people who are in the business of caregiving--that won't relax their policies for gays. So yeah, the anti-gay sentiment does run that deep in places.

The issue of gay rights as it pertains to marriage points to significantly deeper, and to my mind, more troubling problem: That the State has sanctioned a religious ritual.

Of course over the years we've endowed this religious ritual with several secular benefits. But the rite itself is religious and should run afoul of the Separation of Church and State. If our society wants to bestow benefits on familial partnerships in the form of civil unions, that's one thing, and I'm fine with that. But Civil Unions should hold the over-arching legal framework, with Marriage being one subset or type of Civil Union left to Religion to define as it sees fit.

I live in Massachusetts, where same-sex couples have been able to marry for a few years. The sky, I've noticed, hasn't fallen yet. And we finally got rid of that dumb-ass law that said if the marriage wouldn't be recognized in your home state, you couldn't marry here. The sky still didn't fall.

I'm extremely happy that the Commonwealth isn't wasting a penny of my tax dollars to keep consenting adults from marrying each other. There's plenty of more important stuff for them to waste my tax dollars on.

On the hospital visitation bit, same-sex couples very definitely need to have medical power of attorney documents for each other -- and need to keep them close to hand at all times.

Most hospital people are fine -- several months ago, one of the most accommodating people I met when my Canadian wife/American partner was in a Catholic hospital was the priest/chaplain. Good for him (and please don't rat him out to the pope) -- but we can't count on decency anywhere at any time. So, again, documents matter.

We've been a couple for 33-1/2 years, and we've had the necessary documents for a long, long time. Nevertheless, whenever one of us is hospitalized we NEVER tell admissions clerks or medical personnel about the existence of blood relatives (who live hundreds of miles away) and always reiterate (easy to do -- we're both pushy when necessary) that the partner is in charge in an emergency. THIS IS CRITICAL -- a serious homophobe would leave a partner in the lurch if he or she knew there was a relative somewhere.

Anyhow, if you're straight and all this matters to you, please help overturn Prop. 8 in California and work to changes laws in 49 other states. Oh, and don't forget to bug Obama and the Democrats in Congress to get off their timid asses and DO SOMETHING!

"46 percent voted for a candidate whose contempt-riddled running mate watches Putin rear his head over the airspace above her house.

"So a 10 percent bloc of hateful idiocy seems kind of low, actually. It's the 46 percent Strategic Ignorance Coalition that is more a cause for concern in the long run."

I would have voted against Prop 8 if I were a Californian, and did vote against Arizona's Prop 102, and donated to the campaign to prevent that prop from being passed. I have many gay friends. Along with you, I am concerned about the 46%. At this point in history, many of them are at least somewhat divorced from reality.

However, I am not surprised at the discrepancy between the 10% and the 46%. I personally know 4 people who are among the 46% who are not anti-gay in the least, and who probably did not vote for Prop 102. They voted from McCain/Palin for other reasons. One of them works for Raytheon. Another believed that Obama would raise his taxes, and taxes are his overriding issue. He would never vote for a candidate who would raise his taxes. Two more are religious conservatives, members of the Missouri Synod Lutheran Church, but are singers and choir directors and as such work with gays all the time and have no problem getting along with them.

Those 10% who would actually deny hospital visitation rights to longterm partners do need to search their consciences. The kindest interpretation to place upon their opinion is that they are woefully misinformed about GLBT people, and believe that it's a "choice" and that they are out "recruiting", etc., etc. But some of these people, at least, are extremely mean-spirited and ugly spiritually.

Isn't 10% around the number of people who still tell pollsters the sun goes around the earth?

And my experience (under somewhat different conditions) is the same as K's: having that piece of paper saying that you are authorized to make decisions for someone is worth exactly nothing in the face of some functionary who decides they don't want to listen to you. Sure, two or three year later, after some huge amount of lawyers' fees you'll get some negligible recompense, but a marriage certificate would be much better.

10%'s:

"This is a Christian Nation! It says so right on the box!"

Entropy, entropy, entropy, entropy, entropy, entropy.....

I do not underdtand this business of gays in the military. I enlisted in the army in 1948 and every Saturday after formation at noon two fellow recruits took off with their gay benfactor and returned at 6:30 AM on Monday to change into their fatigues and headed to the chow line. No mess, no bother and no concern. No big deal then and I don't understand the big deal now

Obama really should repeal DADT (and possibly DOMA) at his earliest convenience. The political benefits and further marginalization of the Douchebag Party would both be substantial.

Homer,

I have to disagree with you on this on. Yes, the press ran with the idea that blacks caused prop 8 to pass.

Here is where I have a legitimate argument against that.
1) Blacks are not the largest minority group in California anymore.
2) Not all, but the majority of blacks in California are either in prison or a convicted felon. If they are a convicted felon, that strips away their right to vote.

I am basing this on the fact that this is where you have the majority of racial profiling. You have a lot of blacks in prison for crimes they didn't commit, or didn't have money for legal fees, or were given harsher sentences than their white counterparts. 99% of the time, a black is stopped by the police, the first question they are asked is, "are you on probation or parole." If they are on probation or parole, that's a violation for police contact.

You can dispute this, yet, the facts are clear.

I worked in a jail a long time ago. What do you think happens there? There's no co-ed in jail!

People have this misconception that they are sending people to jail to pay for their crimes - yet, sometimes there are those that prefer to be in jail than on the streets.

No, it's not because they get three meals and a cot. Sometimes they can do a hustle here better than they can on the streets. They may have their freedom taken away, but that doesn't mean they don't have sex or just about anything else they want.

IMO, let the the gays get married. I have gay male friends, they are the best friends you can ask for. As a straight female, I have seen gay, lesbian relationships last longer than heterosexual relationships and marriages. Also, they love children, I've never seen one child abused as I have with heterosexual individuals/marriages.

I wouldn't give up any of my gays friends for anything in the world.

To answer your question (at least somewhat), the main reason that it passed appears to have been because of Blacks and Latinos voting for it.

Actually, it passed because old people voted for it. So it's a problem that will take care of itself in time.

I don't think hospital visitation rights should be an issue anyway. I think that when you are ill (more than just a broken leg or whatever, I mean seriously hospital-comitted) you should be able to point out a couple of people with visitation rights anyway, even if they are not family.

I would desperately want my three best friends instead of my blood kin at my bed anytime they desire, though I do not consider marying either of them But they are way more family to me than anyone else.

One word: inevitable.

The solution to the gay marriage "problem" - take marriage off the table. Get the body politic out of the marriage business

Let marriage be the private commitment that it really is. Those who wish can choose marriage, and label it as such, in accordance with their faith, spiritual values, ethics, or other personal beliefs. It may or may not be church or religion-related; that depends of the tenets of the religion and the wishes of the couple.

On the other hand, the state should have nothing to do with the institution of marriage. Its concern should only be civil union and the regulation of the legalities of formation and dissolution, basic rights and obligations of the parties, and economic benefits attendant to the union. The state's role as protector of children remains unchanged.

So change the words, get the state completely out of the institution of "marriage".

homer www.altara.blogspot.com

If Prop 8 doesn't get struck down in the courts, look for it to get neutralized at the ballot box in 2010.
The Mormons and the Catholic Church made a serious tactical error in supporting this. This poll shows that.