Proposition 8 is invalid because the initiative process was improperly used in an attempt to undo the constitution’s core commitment to equality for everyone by eliminating a fundamental right from just one group – lesbian and gay Californians. Proposition 8 also improperly attempts to prevent the courts from exercising their essential constitutional role of protecting the equal protection rights of minorities.
Ward Connerly, the California activist-businessman who has led the crusade against affirmative action, said Obama’s victory proved his point. “We have overcome the scourge of race,” Connerly said.
“The polling judge told her that they didn’t have any wheelchairs, and was at a loss at what to do. That’s when five Black men got out of line to assist this woman, supporting her back, arms and legs, they carried her into the polling center.”
A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination. And this year, in this election, Ann Nixon Cooper touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote, because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.
From No On 8: Nov 05, 2008 Results Status Roughly 400,000 votes separate yes from no on Prop 8 – out of 10 million votes
A ballot initiative to ban gay marriage in California appears to have narrowly passed, and similar measures succeeded in Arizona and Florida, where voters approved constitutional amendments recognizing marriage as a union between one man and one woman, CNN projected.
“Our failure as progressives to tap into the moral underpinnings of the nation is not just rhetorical, though. Our fear of getting “preachy” may also lead us to discount the role that values and culture play in some of our most urgent social problems. After all, the problems of poverty and racism, the uninsured and the unemployed, are not simply technical problems in search of the perfect ten point plan. They are rooted in both societal indifference and individual callousness – in the imperfections of man.”
On Faith, a feature of the Washington Post offers an analysis of how President-elect Barack Obama won the election on the faith and values issues:
Perhaps it isn’t too early to prepare for Christmas by considering why Mary’s face is so central to the visual world of Christianity. However secularized the so called ‘Holidays’ are becoming, the mail that will soon be pouring into mailboxes will certainly contain some cards showing her gazing out at us, or returning the smile of her baby son. Let’s prepare to receive them with fresh insight.
Bless our beautiful land, O Lord,
with its wonderful variety of people,
of races, cultures and languages.
May we be a nation of laughter and joy,