Some new laws after last night ...

Bans on Gay Marriage: Arizona, California (wtf?), Florida
Bans on Gay Couples Adopting Children: Arkansas

Legal Slot Machines: Maryland

Medical Marijuana Legalized: Michigan

Legalized Stem Cell Research: Michigan

End of Affirmative Action: Nebraska

Legal Doctor-Assisted Suicide: Washington

So now, how many of these are "legal" and will hold up? And what the fuck is with California banning gay marriage?

Didn't they just legalize it?
I didn't even know these things were being voted on.

Massachusetts decriminalized the possession of marijuana up to an ounce. Yay!

Didn't they just legalize it?
I didn't even know these things were being voted on.


I think the California legalization was the legislature making it ok, and Gov. Ahhhhnuld not opposing it.

Now, with the required amount of signatures, those opposed were able to get an initiative on the ballot, and the vote to ban apparently was larger than the vote to allow. Last I heard, a number of legal challenges are already being made against the initiative, and the total vote count was not yet complete, but that could have changed.

The ballot initiative was/is an attempt to circumvent/invalidate the recent law allowing gay marriage, and change the state constitution so as not to *allow* any such law permitting homosexual marriage. It narrowly passed due to massive financial support and media bombardment by right-wing religious groups as well as, to my surprise, the LDS, which historically has taken more of a 'live and let live' approach with regard to social issue but in this case aggressively organized in support of the amendment.

It does seem a truly odd, given California's history with regard to gay rights, result (not to mention counterproductive), but the agricultural and oil-industry-driven center of the state is much more conservative than most of Southern California or the Bay area.

I'm sad about Prop 102 in Arizona. I voted "no" for it.

the decriminilization is not legalization. Its now punishable by forfeiture of product and a fine.

LGBT issues and Hispanics/immigration will be the next sweeping civil rights-type issues of our lifetimes. I'm certain we'll see these addressed within a few years of each other.

The ballot initiative was/is an attempt to circumvent/invalidate the recent law allowing gay marriage, and change the state constitution so as not to *allow* any such law permitting homosexual marriage.

Mute point but there was no law allowing gay marriage just a prior law not allowing gay marriage that was shot down by the courts. And now there is a constituional amendment not allowing gay marriage (not laws pertaining to)

Oh and Arnold finally got his redistricting measure to pass.

The got hates faggots bill passed in florida, but thankfully the people who wrote it are even dumber then normal. It makes any type of civil union or partnership other then marriage illegal, gay or straight. So it will have the crap kicked out of it in court in short order.

I'm sad about Prop 102 in Arizona. I voted "no" for it.Are you in AZ?

We voted down the same damn proposition last year, and some how they passed it through this year. I didn't hear much of a counter campaign though - last time there were plenty of people speaking out against the ballot, and almost nothing this time. Very disappointed in my state.

There's more fur flying about the Prop 8 issue in California today, including revelations that the Yes on 8 campaign mailed a flyer to African-American voters that blatantly lied about Barack Obama's position on the initiative (egregious enough that the Obama camp had to issue a statement in the closing days of the campaign, and the Governator spoke out about it) and that the Yes on 8 campaign aggressively targeted African-American churches. Their efforts paid off; while the measure was narrowly defeated by Whites (63% of the electorate), Asians, and 'Other', exit polling showed that 70% of African-Americans (10% of the electorate) voted in favor of Prop 8, which was enough to carry the day:

http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls/#CAI01p1

The breakdown is more complicated than that (the vote skews strongly by age, income, and education as well), but it's really sickening to me to think about the way in which Obama's candidacy, in itself both historic and true testimony to the ideal of someone being judged on the content of their character, was used, and dishonestly at that, as a vehicle to deny and abridge the rights of others - and I can't help but wonder how deliberate and the conscious the decision by the anti-gay-marriage/adoption groups was to choose *this* year, knowing that African-American turnout at the polls would break records by large margins, and the prominent role historically Black churches play in shaping opinion in their communities.

Regards,
Nydia