Crap

[mishalak]

I'm not sure if I would have traded, in some impossible plot device genie trade, President Obama for Proposition 8 going down in flames. I think I might have. I am pushing back my estimate of when gays will be able to marry in Colorado to 2024. Elections are the ultimate poll and right now it looks like the support for gay marriage is a lot weaker than I thought.

Comments

[eiricmacbean.livejournal.com]

I, too, am disappointed in California. To have an existing right rescinded is scary to anyone, or it should be! I hope this is not the start of a trend. To me, it's not just about the specific issue of Prop 8, but the whole notion of this step backwards in the path toward equal rights for any minority group makes me concerned.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Start? No. It is the end of a long road. I think every state with direct democracy unmoderated by their legislature has taken away the right to marry. Every last one of them. Let me just double check on Florida and Arizona. <wanders off> Yep, Florida and Arizona passed the bans. There is not a single solitary state that has ever allowed gay marriage when put up to a vote. Not one.

It is going to be decades before marriage is more than an exception in a few northeast states.

[eiricmacbean.livejournal.com]

So I see, now that I've looked. Not good. Not good at all.
If I had a plot-bunny, I'd make it come up with a federal mandate to allow marriage for all. Not that it would solve the problem or end the debate at all, of course.
On the plus side, by the time you can get married, I'll be ordained and can do the ceremony...

[bovil.livejournal.com]

There's still a chance. Most of the urban precincts haven't reported yet.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

If so I'll be wrong and very, very happy. But that's not what happened two years ago or four years ago. Mostly urban areas report first rather than last. Rural areas tend to take longer tallying.

[bovil.livejournal.com]

The Secretary of State's website is really poky today. When I was able to get in to see reporting results, the large urban counties were reporting at much lower percentages.

It may be an effect of standardized voting/counting machines. Sparsely populated rural counties have fewer precincts to collate and fewer ballots to count. Large urban counties have a lot more data to work through. Some counties report in stages, and some appear to report all at once.

[aylinn.livejournal.com]

I've been watching prop 8 myself. there is still hope - that margin has been steadily shrinking all night.

However, I would like to say thank you for sending the idiots in CO down in flames. (prop 48)

ETA - although I admit - the county by county scroll on cnn doesn't look promising. I AM sorry. (I'm also sorry that I moved into a state that already had that enacted.)

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

Long ago, Ray Bradbury wrote an effective short story about a discriminated-against minority just building their own space-ships and emigrating to another planet. I'm hoping some outstandingly good writer will do a similar Alternate World novel detailing what things would be like if something like that happened (in California or the whole U.S.) in this context. The best (in two senses) part of our Creativity in most of the Arts suddenly disappearing would have ... Interesting long-term effects on our entire culture.

(Not that I'm claiming that Gays are necessarily the direct source of creativity in the arts, but the combination of that and their indirect effect seems to be a Major Thing.)

I haven't seen final numbers yet, and there's talk about legal challenge on the grounds that this is an alteration of the CA Constitution (which seems to require a larger number of votes) rather than an addition to it, but it looks as though my pleasure in being an American will be diluted by my disappointment in California voters. *sigh* So, I'm sad for the Gays who want to be able to get married, and even more unhappy about the idea of Religious prohibitions being applied by Government.

[almeda.livejournal.com]

Looking at websites that do county-by-county results breakdowns, it's interesting that the entire seacoast went No on 8 ... and the rest of the state went Yes. Says something about the demographics involved.