It appears that the ban on same-sex marriage may fall short in one of the states where it was on the ballot yesterday. The latest returns show the ban in Arizona is trailing, with 48.6 voting in favor and “51.4 percent . . . voting against” Proposition 107, the “Protect Marriage Initiative.”
Referenda defining marriage as the union of one man and one woman passed across the country, including Wisconsin, a state where, I thought, it could be defeated. The proposal in Arizona was particularly pernicious, not only so defining marriage, but also barring “state and local governments from giving legal status to unmarried couples.” So extreme was this provision that it even would have barred universities and school districts from recognizing domestic partnerships. It’s my sense that it was that aspect of the initiative which sunk the proposal in the Grand Canyon State.
Simply put, the authors of the referendum overreached. As a result, Arizona beccame the first state to reject a ban on gay marriage in a popular referendum.
I don’t think this apparent victory means that opinion has shifted in favor of gay marriage. Instead, it suggests that there is a growing consensus in favor of civil unions, some kind of recognition of same-sex couples.
No wonder Jodi Rell, the Republican governor of Connecticut, who signed such a provision into law last year, handily won reelection last night.
(H/t: Instapundit.)
I was just looking at some of the earlier posts from your live blogging from last night…
Isn’t it ironic, 2 years ago us Democrats assumed the exit polls were right and that we had won the election. But in fact, the exit polls were wrong.
This year, because of what happened last time, Republicans saw the exit polls and were emboldened, believing they were wrong and raised their hopes that the odds had been defied yet again. But this time, the exit polls were spot on and it was you guys who would be disappointed.
I guess what goes around comes around.
You have to bear in mind that Arizona is no “liberal” coastal state so a loss here is pretty significant for the homohaters. Also, the anti-gay zealots know that they lose if they allow any recognition of same-sex couples. That’s why they won’t put forward amendments that don’t also ban civil unions, D.P.’s etc. I would also point out that even the places where the amendments passed, outside of the south, the margins were not overwhelming. That certainly bodes well for the future. The next step is to see if New York Governor Spitzer keeps his promise to make SSM a reality in New York. I hope gay repubs support him in that.
No such thing as a Gay Republican. Closet Gay Republican is the proper term.
MONTANA FALLS TO THE DEMOCRATS!
DONALD RUMSFELD WILL RESIGN!
Damn, the good news keeps on rolling in. This is a house cleaning.
I agree we can make no claims that the nation as a whole is embracing gay rights.
What might be more correct is to say that we may have reached the saturation point with these initiatives, both on their faces as well as a GOTV for the Republicans. I certainly hope so. And in a few years, when these draconian measures start to hurt straight couples down-stream, we can start the decades long process to reverse them.
“MONTANA FALLS TO THE DEMOCRATS
DONALD RUMSFELD WILL RESIGN!
Damn, the good news keeps on rolling in. This is a house cleaning.”
The silence around here is deafening, doncha think?
I think that the failure of both this amendment and also the total ban on abortions has to be significant in terms of what it means for the power of the Social Conservatives (who should really be called conservative socialists).
I think it also worked against the GOP, even with those in favor of the bans because to most voters Iraq was the most important issue, but the GOP kept talking about gay marriage as if it was the most important thing in the world. It gave the (correct) impression that they were out of touch.
No silence here, buddy.
Rumsfeld served this country honorably and he has tendered his resignation. As Michelle Malkin points out, “A quick word for Bush critics who have lambasted him as a stubborn cowboy who doesn’t respond: Well, there goes that myth, too.”
And as for the image of Rumsfeld in the dock at The Hague branded as a war criminal – POOF! That image disappeared, too.
Press conference was fun – best line came from the President, who upon entering the East Room looked around at the press and said: “Why all the glum faces?”
Regards,
Peter H.
Yeah Peter, how’d ya like that election?
Quite a stunning change of fortune for a party that little more than a year ago was planning for “a permanent majority”.
Come to think of it, I need the new definition of “permanent”.
=)
It’s great to hear that people back Bush for doing what should have been done so long ago, but the people at redstate seem not to be so happy. Complaints rage, pointing out that a) if Bush truly believes that Rumsfeld is the best man for the job, why did he let him go? b) If he doesn’t think Rummy is the man, why did he stand up last week and say “Rumsfeld is here to stay” Either Bush just sold out the guy doing such a great job, or he wasn’t doing a great job and Bush should have copped to that months ago and not claimed Rummy was staying when he wasn’t.
The Republitugs ran on Gays, God and Guns and got gutted.
I feel good about my country again today.
>Press conference was fun – best line came from the President, who upon entering the East Room looked around at the press and said: “Why all the glum faces?”
BS, you must have missed seeing BUSH”S face as he stepped up to the mic.
Let me guess, you think Faith Hill was joking too, right?
LOL…..then you’d better not look too closely at the viewpoints of the Democrats who were able to unseat Republicans, David.
On the other hand, Colorado both banned gay marriage and voted down an initiative to create domestic partnerships.
And re-elected Carolyn Musgrave, the House sponsor of the Constitutional Amendment to outlaw gay marriage.
Oddly enough, I’m wondering if the Haggard scandal actually helped the Republicans and conservative socialists such as Musgrave by putting gays more prominently in front of a rather highly homophobic electorate. Although the Dems still did pretty good in the state over all.
Quite probably, Gryph — which is, in and of itself, an excellent argument against outing as a tactic.
First, I’d like to remind Democrats that while it’s understandable you may want to taunt Republicans over the election (I’m happy to see some of these people sent packing, although I will miss Chafee and Jim Leach), keep in mind the majority is still fairly narrow and 2008 may easily see Republicans roar back into power. Don’t act like you are a permanent majority.
Second, many states (Ohio in particular) have passed amendments as bad or worse than what Arizona rejected. I think what happened was that Arizona’s libertarian ways shone through, and many people in Arizona decided they were not willing to ban ALL benefits for unmarried couples. This is a big step forward and we should all study the dynamics of this vote.
Barry Goldwater would be so proud of his state today. So proud.
Whatever NDT, Bush look completely BITCH-SLAPPED before he started speaking.
Lol, he said he didn’t see this coming, of course he didn’t see Katrina coming either.
I feel good about my country again today.
#10, that’s the difference between conservatives and liberals.
We conservatives feel good about our country every day.
Julie the Jarhead
Warming up for Mitt 2008!
Gotta agree with Julie-just because the dems control congress I don’t hate my country.
The bad thing for the democrats is they now have to actually make plans and follow them, and the GOP can sit back and respond with “hey we don’t have to have a plan, we are the minority, we just get to say how crappy your plan is.”
Really Jule?
How can you feel good about one party rule that was geared to destroying the middle class while being little less than shameless shills to Big Money Special Interest K Street lobby groups, BORROWING and spending America down the drain, “Staying the Course” on an Iraqi quagmire that is costs the lives of thousands of Americas boys and girls (while the majority of ungrateful Iraqis want to see “Americans DEAD) etc, etc.
BTW, not a lib not a con imagine that… but you think it was the “libs” that put the smacked down the Repubs, right?
BTW, who do you think your are and how dare you question my patriotism… I SERVED, USAF ’75-’79 57130 APR Fire Protection SPEC, honorable discharge.
#15:
The House majority is not that narrow and history suggests that majority switches in the House are rare – prior to last night, only once in the previous 50 years. The Iraq war fiasco is not going away with Rumsfeld’s departure. Bushco will either still be leading that inadequate effort or will have bowed to the inevitable and redeployed our troops thus admitting failure. Plus investigations are almost certain to uncover more corruption that will tar the Repubs for years to come.
from what I understand the opposition to the Arizona ammendment ran ads categorizing it as a heterosexual issue. The ads stated how this ammendment would affect HETEROSEXUAL couples negatively by denying the stay at home unmarried partner benefits.They saturated the media with this perception. If they had campaigned on the grounds that this was an ammendment that had anything to do with gay marriage then the gay marriage proponents might have something to crow about. The truth is that they didn’t. They outspent the proponents of this legislation by a factor of ten. How about they try it again? Seven states down so no need to spend money in those locations again so there’s that much money that can be put into getting the truth out in Arizona next time.
I’m pissed.
Right wing neo-fascist sycophants like Julie have done NOTHING but turn American against Americas, labeling ANYONE that disagrees with them as a “lib” or a “traitor” and have turned a blind eye to utter incompetence and corruption… enough is enough.
BTW, I’m a big guy, 6′ 4″ 230 lbs, completely straight and I have yet to have one of you brave, anonymous keyboard warriors question my patriotism face to face.
re David’s Patriotism
for the record David. I think John Kerry has pretty much proved that serving in the army does not make anyone immune from questions of Patriotism, and he enlisted as I understand. Not tht I have any ax to grind wwith you other than that but it really irritates me when someone try’s to pull that. I know of several veterans who became unpatriotic and I know of several veterans who were unpatriotic when they served. Hmmm… seems to me I recall a hit piece by Dan rather years ago where several “veterans” claimed to have witnessed and taken part in war crimes in vietnam. Turned out though that said individuals were never in the theatre of war. As I remember it they were stationed behind a desk somewhere in the Phillipines. So Dan, obviously not all veterans are patriots. I decide who is a partiot not by positions they took in the past but by poitions they take today.
#21: Prop 107 was well known to be a ban on gay marriage – that’s how it was described in the press. But it was also a ban on any benefits for unmarried couples and there were far more of these folks than gay couples. It was the right thing to do emphasize this stealth aspect of the amendment and how it would affect far more than gay couples. Arizonans weighed the fact that gay marriage was already illegal – upheld by the Arizona high court and that the only effect of the amendment would be to hurt thousands of couples both gay and straight.
Re Ian,
Thank you for clarifying that. I had heard a caller on a talk show explain how the ads on tv never mentioned it being about ‘gay marriage” and that many people were not informed as to what it was and were under the impression it was about straight couples. The question still remains though, is this a voctory for gay marriage? It doesn’t sound like it from what you said.
“I decide who is a partiot not by positions they took in the past but by poitions they take today.”
Right, Iraq was a clusterfuck from the begining.
What a terrible waste of America’s young men and women.
Here’s Bush’s 2003 State of the Union speech, here’s a fun thing to do…. go through the text and find were Bush justifies his war on Iraq so as to give Iraqis democratic freedoms, k?
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/28/sotu.transcript/
Did you know that Bush kicked out the UN Weapons inspectors, who were doing thier jobs?
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2003-03-17-inspectors-iraq_x.htm
America has finally woken up to the fact that the die-hard Bush supporters are mortally afraid of being wrong – these are the kind of people who’ll deny their house is on fire whilst coughing and wheezing from smoke inhalation.
What a great country.
I agree with those that said the election was more about Iraq, and not a victory of gay rights. The Democrats learned in 2004 that the country is not ready for gay marriage, and ran candidates who were against the Iraq war, but social moderates, or in some cases, social conservatives. Gay marriage isn’t going to happen in the next two years clearly, but I do believe gay rights will advance more than they would had Republicans kept control of Congress. We’ll see.
#9, torrentprime. It’s called politics. Clinton did and said similar things when any of his cabinet was under fire.
Gryph, NDT, I also wondered if the Haggard outing also spurred conservatives in Colorado, and helped reelect Musgrave, and defeat the domestic partnership referendum. Wonder if Mr. Rogers is taking credit for the Musgrave’s reelection. Even if you think outing is justified, you have to rethink the strategy since it doesn’t appear to help advance gay rights and/or help Democrats.
-The House majority is not that narrow and history suggests that majority switches in the House are rare – prior to last night, only once in the previous 50 years.-
I realize the majority is not excessively narrow, but some of those seats are going to be one term only, and there are also seats that Democrats have in GA, KS, UT, MN, etc. that may go to the GOP with a strong enough challenge.
As for the AZ defeat not being “for gay marriage” – nobody ever said it was. This was a defeat of vicious anti-gay legislation designed solely to punish gays and benefit some extremist Republicans. Republicans lost ground in AZ in spite of this amendment. And John McCain, who appeared in ads for the amendment, should be ashamed of himself.
7: Rumsfeld dropped in and out of government over the years when it was convenient for him to make money for he and his buddies. I think helping to arm Saddam Huessein was an outstanding highlight of his career, with the icing on the cake being that picture of the 2 of them shaking hands. good job rummy.
BTW, who do you think your are and how dare you question my patriotism… I SERVED, USAF ‘75-’79 57130 APR Fire Protection SPEC, honorable discharge.
As I like to point out, Benedict Arnold was a decorated veteran of combat as well.
Your military service, sir, while laudable, does not make your stances immune to criticism, nor does it preclude anyone from questioning your patriotism. There have been patriots and anti-Americans both inside and outside the armed forces, and to say that one or the other automatically engenders such is to pervert the concept.
Carl, so what made the legislation (chuckle) “vicious”,. the fact that it was “anti-gay”? Was it in fact anti-gay? Is it anti-gay to state that one just doesn’t see two men or two women equaling a marriage? Is it vicious? I’m gay and I laugh at the proposition of two gay men constituting a “marriage”. Does this make me anti-gay or just a realist? Do you realize your bombast makes you seem silly? Darling, even gay people don’t take this thing serioulsy, no need to demonize anybody.
re 29
you’re right, we should have let jihadist Iran overrun Iraq back in the 80’s.They could have steamrolled through Iraq and overtaken the whole gulf and Saudi Arabia, we would have been so much better off if that had happened. No wait, that’s one of the things we are trying to prevent now….
re29
And by the same token we should never have armed the evil stalin to help him defeat Nazi Germany. Kuz he wuz a bad guy, and we were at war with them for 50! years! We shuld uhv let hitler beat him…..No wait, then we would have had to face hitler after he conquered all of europe and a good part of asia. You see guys, this is why we don’t trust the libs with national defence…. Oh wait, seems like we just did, anybody else have a bad feeling about this?
“Rumsfeld served this country honorably and he has tendered his resignation. As Michelle Malkin points out, “A quick word for Bush critics who have lambasted him as a stubborn cowboy who doesn’t respond: Well, there goes that myth, too.”
LOL….Is there no end to the the spin? Noooo. Dubya isn’t stubborn because he did what mmilitary people told him to do two years ago — after he lost the Congress and the damn Army Times even called for his resgination and intelligence stated beyond any shadow of a doubt that Iraq is worse off now than it was three years ago.
Noooooooooooo. He’s not stubborn. He’s the Decider!
Now that the Democrats have one Virginia Senate seat, all eyes turn to the other one.
With the GOP in the minority, facing a very steap numerical disadvantage in the number of Senate seats they need to defend in 2008 (a 22 to 11 disadvantage), i’m thinking John Warner will probabaly call it a career.
Warner will no longer be chair of the Armed Services Committee. He will be 81 in 2008. Will he retire? That would certainly open the door for Mark Warner.
Can you say 2 Democratic senators from the state of Virginia? 🙂
I’ll have to claim ignorance on the exact language of the Arizona initiative. I know the Ohio version was the exact same as the Ohio DOMA, which had not led to the cataclysm that the opponents of the ammendment predicited would happen.
And still haven’t happened.
I’m in the minority here *laugh* but I do see the ammendments as a defensive reaction, not an offensive one. I’ve been for the ‘seperate but equal’ same sex relationships.
Again, speaking from Ohio, Brown is more Conervative than DeWhine, (not that that says much) and I’m sorrowfully expecting Teddy Strickland to return to the policies of the last Democrat Governor Dick Celeste (before he dicks you)
As to other things. Yes by all means, lets see the Democratic congress roll back the DOMA *snort*
I’m all for, after many years of reading and reflection, removing ‘Dont ask, don’t tell.’ IIRC the military code of conduct has rules covering most of the fears of the proponents of that plan. More importantly it would be a nice step back for the party that put it there in the first place, and believes a gay man talking to a minor is automatically a molester.
32 / 33: please, I’m laughing even harder. You come up with a lot of excuses that fly in the face of the truth. It was Ronald Reagan and his cronies who gave all that material support to Saddam and knew full well that he was cruel, malicious dictator while he was doing our dirty work against Iran. People here blather on about what we are doing is to bring freedom to the world and you’re trying to backpedal on how our government was partially to blame in allowing Saddam to torture and kill his own people. Sorry, you can’t have it both ways.
And amazingly, a day later, Sullington still has absolutely zero mention of, let alone outrage over, the success of the anti-same-sex marriage initiatives in Colorado, Idaho, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Virginia and Wisconsin, in spite of his very early mention of the failure of the initiative in Arizona.
I guess that would harsh his buzz.
#38. He posted a link to the outcomes.
#19 and #30. David, you have to understand that the only people that qualify as patriots on this blog are: gaypatriot, gaypatriotwest, the other gaypatriot contributors, the people on the blogroll, some woman VK and this Dallas guy, who serves as this blog’s comment police department. Everyone else is an undercover terrorist masquerading as an America Hater, with two exceptions: christianists who want gays in prison and good gays in the Republican party. (And by good gays, I mean those that stay in the closet, as the christianists would like them to…)
You, of course, David, must hate America. The Dallas guy decides in this alternate reality, where the country really elected shrouded conservatives on Tuesday, to run the United States Senate and the United States House of Representatives, as well as a majority of states and commonwealths throughout the union.
You are in the world of the True Believers.
-Carl, so what made the legislation (chuckle) “vicious”,. the fact that it was “anti-gay”? Was it in fact anti-gay? Is it anti-gay to state that one just doesn’t see two men or two women equaling a marriage?-
Have you actually read the language of the amendment? The amendment would have banned domestic partnerships, civil unions, most legal contracts for all unmarried couples, not only from courts, but the legislature and city governments could also never pass these benefits.
-I know the Ohio version was the exact same as the Ohio DOMA, which had not led to the cataclysm that the opponents of the ammendment predicited would happen.
And still haven’t happened.-
It depends on what you mean by “cataclysm”. Several men who were arrested for domestic violence had the charges against them dropped because their lawyers used the new amendment to say that because these women weren’t their wives, they couldn’t be prosecuted under domestic violence. Now how does that help save marriage?
Several men who were arrested for domestic violence had the charges against them dropped because their lawyers used the new amendment to say that because these women weren’t their wives, they couldn’t be prosecuted under domestic violence. Now how does that help save marriage?
This example means one of two things to me:
1. Ohio has fabulously incompetent prosecutors who believe that someone who cannot be prosecuted for domestic violence cannot be prosecuted for assault and battery, and a fabulously incompetent Legislature that cannot rewrite a law covering domestic violence to include all persons residing, regardless of relationship.
2. Ohio has fabulously partisan prosecutors who deliberately let violent criminals, and a fabulously partisan Legislature that feels no need to rewrite a law that gives liberals fodder for misrepresentation.
“BTW, I’m a big guy, 6′ 4″ 230 lbs, completely straight and I have yet to have one of you brave, anonymous keyboard warriors question my patriotism face to face.”
Come to Pennsylvania. I’ll tell you just that, and more.
“It was Ronald Reagan and his cronies who gave all that material support to Saddam”
Complete horseshit.
Julie #18: We conservatives feel good about our country every day.
I also feel good about my country every day — I love it, in fact. Unfortunately, the US government fell to a socialist revolution 75 years ago, something that has been continued and sometimes expanded since then regardless of who’s in power. Until that changes, I will not be able to have anything but contempt for the government. I almost said “my government,” but that would get it exactly backwards: the government claims me, not vice versa.
Frankly, I can’t help but thinking that this government taxes and spends, with little accountability, at a rate that would have made George III salivate. Given the words of the Declaration of Independence, that kind of makes you think.
But of course you wouldn’t give any credit to the liberal mouthpiece the HRC for helping pour a lot of money into defeating that in Arizona. Certainly if none of those DEMOCRATIC LIBERALS had campaigned and canvassed and called and tried to get Arizona voters to not pass this, it still wouldn’t have? How many Republican led organizations helped them with that? Hm. *crickets chirping*