Election
So Obama won. Quite an exciting thing, and something I’m exceptionally happy about. The whole election has been tainted somewhat, though, by California’s passing of Prop 8, banning gay marriage. I find myself at a loss for words. It’s just overwhelmingly upsetting. Has a constitution ever been amended to take away existing civil rights? It’s tragic.
On a happier note, Californians won huge points for passing Prop 1A, a bond measure to help pay for a high-speed train between San Diego and San Francisco; and Angelenos passed Measure R, a half-cent sales tax increase to fund public transportation, including a subway extension to the Westside (!). Both of these were huge wins, and I’m absolutely thrilled they passed.
In conclusion, California, congratulations, thank you, and seriously, WTF‽
I personally line up with some of the insta-pundits who claim that the No On 8 campaign failed to deliver. Particularly, I think they lost control of the message of what voting no on 8 actually meant practically: there was a great deal of FUD laid out by the Yes On 8 people, and the No On 8 people did too little to counter it.
Although it defies logic to those who understand how the initiative system works, apparently people believed that voting “no” would actually cause changes to the status quo. Apparently these changes would effect “the children”, so they had to be stopped.
I think this is the issue that swung people who otherwise either nominally supported homosexual marriage or were indifferent to the issue towards the “yes” camp. And I think that the smart folks who were promoting the “no” side underestimated the gullibility of some folks.
I have no science to back this up, I’m just another insta-pundit blowhard.
Incidentally, if you want to see an interesting discussion about the civil liberty issue, see the über-long comment thread that followed my Facebook status update “David believes amendments to the constitution (even state constitution) should increase, not decrease liberty.”
Not sure if this link will work for you, but you can try it: http://www.new.facebook.com/profile.php?id=709540162&v=feed&story_fbid=33559435841
Posted by: David Pisoni on November 6th, 2008 4:21 PM