As of now, the evil Proposition 8 has passed. First, Prop 8 is an awful thing to have people vote on in the first place. It smacks of laws we struck down not so long ago, that had no place being laws in the first place: Jim Crow laws, laws outlawing marriage between men and women of different race or ethnicity, etc. What's also bothering me is all the people shouting victoriously that "the people have spoken, and the majority have voted to preserve traditional marriage!" First, we gays have not once tried to ruin marriage as a so-called 'institution.' We just thought it was nice to finally have the option to marry someone we love. Second, despite the win, there was nothing majority about it. Winning when you get barely 52% of the vote may be winning, but that still means that, statistically, if you pull two random people off the street in random areas, probably is such that it is very likely that one supports equal rights for gay people and one does not. Half and half is not a majority, and I'm pleased to say that I know many, many people, gay and straight, who are plenty pissed off that Proposition 8 passed. I watched Twitter like crazy while the vote was being counted, and noticed a trend: the number of people rejoicing Prop 8's passage was dwarfed by the number of people who were shocked and pissed off that it looked poised to pass. This tells me that the ideas of a very few people went into supporting proposition 8, considering how few supporters actually bothered to follow up on the measure once they'd voted. For instance, I say a certain woman updating every five minutes or so, and at one point she even said that she was calling people up to make sure they had voted "yes" on prop 8 in order to verify that they had "kept their promise to her." Naughty naughty, miss LdsNana, you so shady. Those of us who voted no, on the other hand, shared a similar cause and goal that united us as one. No matter how you look at it, "Yes on 8" was a campaign of the few who had to drag others along, and "No on 8" was a campaign of the many who weren't quite as organized, not to mention wealthy, as the opposition.

There have been protest throughout the state, as well there should be, and one day, hopefully soon, equality will be won and we can move forward. I'm definitely proud of the ACLU for this one, because the rights of those in the gay community are not being protected. And given that I live in this land and pay the same taxes everyone else does, I don't think equality is too much to ask for. Don't play word games with me, and tell me that domestic partnerships are the same thing; I want my rights and I want to be able to do as I wish, working and living and enjoying the freedom this country is meant to allow me. One might take this to read: live your life and let me live mine.

To conclude this rant of a post, I leave with a few gems from Twitter Tuesday night. These were some of my favorite tweets of the many thousands that were streaming through there:

• The generation gap that swept Obama into office still hasn't won against Prop 8. 18-29s voted 66% NO; 65 & older: 57% YES.
• Prop 8 is the cardamom pod I just bit into in my plate of saag paneer.
• Prop 8 shows exactly how too much democracy is a horrible thing. Equal rights concerns should never be put to a public vote. Epic fail.
• Way to go, yes-on-prop-8'ers. I hope that suppressing an entire class of people has made your marriages so much more special.

And finally,

• i am proud of prop 8... homosexuals is wrong.... PERIOD!

To which I would reply: Considering the level of this person's literacy prowess, I'm inclined to think he needs to repeat the third grade before he votes again.