Backwards into the Future: California's Anti-Gay Marriage Proposition Apparently Passes; and Arizona's and Florida's Too
From the Wall Street Journal:
Early poll results Tuesday night showed California voters leaning toward overturning same-sex marriage in the state in a decision that could impact how the issue plays out elsewhere in the nation.
Approval of Proposition 8 would be a stunning upset in a $70-million campaign that just weeks ago looked to be running in favor of preserving gay marriage rights.
By 12:34 a.m. in California, 53.1% of voters favored passing Prop 8, as the measure is known, and 46.9% were against it, with 60% of precincts voting, according to the Secretary of State. However, both sides cautioned the vote could be very close and that it might still be early to declare a winner.
The passage of Prop 8, as it is known, would be a major victory for religious conservatives seeking to ban gay marriage in other states, and a crippling setback for the gay rights movement nationwide.
And just to throw more a wrench into things, the LA Times reports that whites opposed the initiative, blacks supported it, and latinos were split.
So is a new post-racial America one in which gays still get left at the altar? Oy.
Update: Similar initiatives specifying marriage only as the union of a man and a woman, forerver and ever or however long it lasts, passed in Arizona and Florida. Read more here.
In Connecticut, voters rejected a prop that would have allowed the state Constitution to be rewritten to ban gay marriage, which the Nutmeg State Supreme Court ruled was legal recently.
