The ladies of The View have had a lot of important things to say about Prop 8, and the issues surrounding this have been complicated, but Elisabeth is beginning to be purposely spread lies. This is the last shred of bigotry that the right can use to focus what remains of their ragtag party. What a disgusting thing to use hatred as a rallying point.

The View needs to get a smart gay person on the panel to discuss this. I'm thinking Wayne Besen.

The video after the jump.

Bill O'Reilly has been making a lot of news lately. I'm wondering if he's been even louder lately because of the vacuum that now exists in place of Republican leadership. Bill is stepping up and speaking out! It's the Bill and Sarah Palin show, people. Bill and Sarah.

And Bill O'Reilly doesn't know what a panda looks like? Pandas are the international symbol for peace and conservation. Every fetus is taught in utero that pandas are black and white and eat nothing but bamboo and are extremely rare because they are too lazy to mate. My God, no wonder the right was so anti-environment for so long -- they don't even know what nature looks like!

Is it bad to enjoy watching the right flail? Because this is a lot of fun.

I'm preaching to the choir here, but this is good information to know. Civil unions are different from marriages - and here's how:

Legal Status, Recognition, Portability of Rights Not valid outside of the state that grants it. No federal protections. Legal structure to dissolve partnership not guaranteed outside of state. May be dissolved without court ruling under some circumstances.

Social Recognition
Not universally understood because benefits vary widely by jurisdiction. Without common understanding of their meaning, domestic partnerships don't provide the same kind of honor and respect that marriages do.

Medical Decisions, Emergencies
Partner's right to visitation and medical decision making may not be recognized out of state.

Partner's right to visitation and medical decision making
Partners may feel unsure of legal protection, and at the mercy of political whims of elected officials.

Tax Benefits
Large gift transfers and inheritance transactions subject to federal taxes. Federal tax returns filed separately.

Retirement, Leave, and other Family Benefits
Do not receive Social Security, veteran's benefits and pension plan survivor benefits upon death of partner. Not guaranteed equal benefits from employers. Excluded from long-term care benefits. Not guaranteed family leave to care for ill partner.

Spousal and Child Support
Outside of state, partners have no legal obligation to support their partner.

Immigration
No benefits for couples in bi-national relationships.

Common Residence
Must share common residence.

Name Changes
Not allowed without court order.

Privacy
Maintained by the state with a central, public and easily-searchable database.

The more information we have, the better. Via Let California Ring.

John Corvino has written about 5 ways we can win gay marriage. This is great. These are great beginning guidelines as we navigate the flood of information:

1. Tell our stories. A striking feature of the various anti-amendment campaigns was the invisibility of those they were supposed to help: gay people. I’m grateful for straight people who support our rights. But straight people can’t directly illustrate the palpable ways in which our families matter to us.

2. Cut the vague talk about “rights” and “discrimination.” It’s wrong to take away rights, right? Well, sure—but we need to be more specific than that.

3. Use words like “bigot” and “hate” sparingly. There is no doubt that some of our opponents are hateful bigots. (I’ve got the mail to prove it.) But 5.7 million California voters?

4. Don’t let opponents hide behind religion. 83% of weekly churchgoers voted in favor of Prop. 8, and they contributed a large percentage of the $36 million raised to promote it. 90% of self-identified atheists and agnostics voted against it.

5. Patience, yes; complacency, never. Time is on our side. California marriage-equality opponents drew 61% of the vote in 2000 but only 52% this year. Voters under 30 heavily opposed Prop. 8.

Head over to 365gay.com to read more.

There has been so much energy surrounding this new direction for equal rights for us gays, and I have found it, well, exhilirating. I have felt a little bad, though, for not being able to join in unequivocally. I've been saying that we need to examine ourselves and our leaders for our failures. And I've been saying that we were too focused on blaming Mormons. And I've been saying that racism has played its part in the gay community for too long now. I've brought these issues up because I really do believe that now is the time to fix these problems (let's just call them that because that's what they are), but, honestly, I've felt a little like I've been somehow betraying my own community for pointing out its flaws. I've felt a little alone in thinking these things.

But, today, there two opinions in The Gay City News that make me feel a little less . . . isolated in this thinking. Herndon L. Davis writes:

My advice to the LGBT community, the organizers of No on Prop 8, the many different LGBT funders, and the remaining members of the Gay Mafia is that they take seriously the racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic factors of black and people of color communities as they endeavor further in the marriage equality quest.

. . . In some corners of our diverse LGBT community, there is a blatant disregard for culture, religion, and the oppression of other racial and ethnic groups. Many working class blacks and Latinos are struggling to pay rent, put food on the table, and, yes, dodge bullets; their first instinct is not to lift their eyes up from their burdens to see the connection to the white- faced, seemingly privileged LGBT leadership that would move them to support marriage equality.

These are big chunks of truth that the LGBT community seems ill-prepared to accept, never mind tackle. In this new age of Obama, a much deeper conversation concerning LGBT race relations lies ahead, one that for now the community seems eager to shy away from.

And Eliyanna Kaiser and Gary Parker write:

Like everyone else in our community, we are upset about the passage of Proposition 8 in California. At a time when the country is celebrating the election of the first African-American president, the LGBT community suffered one of its biggest civil rights setbacks in recent history. And make no mistake about it, we are angry.

Unfortunately, some of the anger our community feels is being directed in unproductive and questionable ways, like the protest being held on Wednesday, November 12, outside the Manhattan Mormon Temple on Columbus Avenue.

There have been numerous media reports about how individual Mormons gave mega millions to the Yes to Prop 8 campaign at the encouragement of Church leadership. Unfortunately, many Orthodox rabbis, Catholic priests, Pentecostal ministers, and Baptist preachers have done the same, not just in California but in other states' anti-gay ballot initiatives, or to help elect anti-gay candidates here in New York.

This is why I really liked the call to action by Dustin Lance Black and Cleve Jones -- it asks each of us what we can do to advance all civil rights:"There are rare moments in human history when, suddenly and unexpectedly, the opportunity for great change and progress becomes possible. Barack Obama has shown us the power of hope and the urgency of seizing that moment. Harvey Milk has shown us the power we possess when we make our voices heard."

In an interview with MTV, James Franco talks Prop 8. The "Milk" actor says about playing a gay man in a relationship, "It's just a relationship." He goes on to show his support for gay marriage.

You know, there is something beautifully haunting about the release of "Milk" (it opens in two weeks) during this protest moment. Defamer had a post last week that asks: "Could an earlier Milk release date have changed anything?" It might have, but I think if we need a movie to rally around, we probably need a leader even more. It's almost like we've gotten used to having Hollywood fight for us. I think we're learning that we're strong enough to fight for ourselves.

This is the tactic I was hoping for. The protest is morphing from an anti-Mormon firing squad into a more general protest for equal rights.

Andy Towle of Towleroad writes:

Last night I attended a meeting of NYC protest organizers and marshals in preparation for tonight's peaceful demonstration which begins at Manhattan's Mormon Temple at 6:30 pm. The protest was organized in response to the passage in California of Proposition 8 and has taken on the more general demand for equal rights and marriage equality for LGBT citizens across the nation . . . it will begin at the Manhattan Mormon Temple location, and at some point, as the location reaches capacity, slowly march down Broadway toward Columbus Circle.

Michelangelo Signorile writes:

Let's not be anti-religious bigots and, as you've heard me many times talk about on the show, let's not engage in this divisive race-blaming game. And it should also go without saying -- but sadly, must be said again and again --- no ugly racist rhetoric.

And Mark Oshiro, who was arrested at the LA Mormon Temple protest, has a few tips as well:

Don't be anti-religious bigots, for one. Protest a church's involvement in an election and protest their contribution to passing Prop 8. But don't turn it into a free-for-all on that church's tenets or members. One, it makes absolutely no sense to do that. Why protest the Mormon church's practice of polygamy, which was outlawed AGES AGO? It's no longer relevant. Why protest anything else they believe in? Protest what they did, not who they are.

Don't be racist. While I don't agree with the number of "70%" when it comes to how many people in the black community voted for Prop 8, there's no denying the rampant homophobia that runs through that community. But holy fuck, please do not turn this into a racist tirade against black people. Not only is it not the point of the protest, but you're perpetrating the same hatred and ignorance you're charging them with. Grow up and be mature about your charges against them. Again, protest what they did, not who they are. [Via Queerty]

Gay Marriage takes a step in the right direction (and one that does not require a protest or a march) in Connecticut today. The Washington Blade reports:

Superior Court Judge Jonathan Silbert has scheduled a hearing at 9:15 a.m. Wednesday in New Haven to enter the final judgment in the case that allows same-sex marriages in Connecticut. Once completed, couples can pick up marriage license forms at town and city clerk's offices.

Connecticut state Rep. Beth Bye and her partner Tracey Wilson hope to make history on Wednesday by becoming the first gay couple to marry in their town of West Hartford.

For Wilson, it's not just a personal milestone, but a professional one as well. She's the town's historian.

"She'd love to be the first one in town," joked Bye, who spent hours as a lawmaker listening to testimony on the marriage issue and ultimately helping to shepherd Connecticut's 2005 civil union law through the General Assembly.

In New Jersey, the third leg of the tri-state area, gay marriage remains near.

The AP has a little bit of good news in all of this:

Even as voters in California banned same-sex marriage in a tight referendum, Tuesday's election opened the door for the same debate in New York.

The pending shift in state Senate control away from Republicans removes one clear obstacle to legalizing gay marriage in New York, though opponents aren't conceding anything yet and advocates say they have work to do.

Democrats won a narrow majority in New York's Senate, where Republicans have buried legislation to start issuing marriage licenses regardless of gender.

As I've been looking into how race affected the results of Prop 8, I have been struck by the history of the uneasy and schizophrenic relationship between sexuality and race.

In March of 2007, Keith Boykin wrote the article "Why Are Whites So Homophobic?" In it, he writes:

Every time a Tim Hardaway or an Isaiah Washington or an unknown black preacher makes an anti-gay comment, reporters call me up and ask why are black people so homophobic. But when high-profile white people make homophobic remarks, nobody ever asks why are white people so homophobic. They should, because the answers to the two questions are related. African Americans are homophobic because white Americans are homophobic. We all live in the same homophobic society, and in this case the prejudice starts from the president on down.

And in January of this year, Obama gave one of his most remarkable speeches. On the day before Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday, At one of the premier black American churches where King used to preach, long before he was the Democratic nominee and even longer before he was President-elect, Senator Barack Obama told 2000 worshippers:

If we are honest with ourselves, we’ll acknowledge that our own community has not always been true to King’s vision of a beloved community. We have scorned our gay brothers and sisters instead of embracing them.[Politico]

Just this weekend, on 365Gay.com, Wayne Besen wrote:

I can understand why white gay people are angry. I certainly am. But let’s take a step back and look at this dispassionately. I believe our failure with the African American vote (70 percent voted in favor of Prop. has more to do with education levels than race. In general, people with lower levels of education - of any race - do not vote for gay rights. White people are twice as likely to graduate college as black people. This accounts for the difference by race on Prop. 8.

And then on The Daily Voice Earl Ofari Hutchinson writes:

"No surprise that blacks tipped the scale for California's gay marriage ban" - The painful truth is that Proposition 8 would have gone down to flaming defeat if blacks hadn't backed it in droves. Proposition 8 was the ballot initiative that defines marriage as strictly between a man and a woman and embeds that in the California state constitution.

Just one month before the election most polls showed that a majority of Californians rejected the measure. But then something happened. A slew of Yes on 8 signs and stickers popped up overnight on lawns in my neighborhood in the predominantly black Crenshaw area near South Los Angeles. The week before that a well-heeled core of preachers who head fundamentalist leaning, mega and medium sized black churches held a rally and then took to their pulpits and bible thumped their congregations to pass the initiative. It worked. Associated Press exit polls found that seven in 10 blacks voted in favor of the proposition, while Latinos marginally supported it and whites were split.

No one seems to have the complete answer, and everything I try to write to sum all of this up sounds . . . not quite right. We're not going to agree with everyone or even each other, necessarily, but we can, and should, arm ourselves with our shared histories. That's, at least, a place to start.

CNN Late Edition Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger on Prop 8. Some hope - Schwarzenegger says the Supreme Court justices could overturn Prop 8. "I learned that you should never, ever give up." (Via Wockner)

The turnout for the weekend's Prop 8 protests was massive. From Salt Lake City and up and down California, tens of thousands of people took to the streets to protest Prop 8. Between this turnout and the statement by Gov. Schwarzenegger above, there is reason to hope.

San Francisco
The San Francisco march saw one of the largest Prop 8 protests to date. Crowd estimates run as high as 25,000. (Via Joe.My.God) "We're not going to do nothing, we're going to start with a march tonight but we're not going to stop until we have equality again!"

Pink News reports:

In excess of 15,000 people are marching through San Francisco to protest at the passing of Proposition 8, the voter initiative in California that effectively bans gay marriage have admitted defeat. Organisers said: "We are protesting tonight in San Francisco because it was in San Francisco that the California Supreme Court gave equality to all Californians, and many people who helped us get to that point are based in San Francisco."

Los Angeles
Wockner writes: "Some 13,000 protesters took to the streets of Los Angeles' Silver Lake district Saturday evening, as large demonstrations continued across the state against Proposition 8 . . . "

365Gay.com writes:

We marched up to Wilshire Boulevard, and sat down again. It was getting toward rush hour in Los Angeles, and we were essentially an unscheduled parade on a major traffic artery. It was sort of like walking up to O’Hare airport on Thanksgiving and mentioning that we’d be taking over a couple of runways for the weekend. Were we really going to do this? Yup.

San Diego
More from Wockner: In San Diego, between at least 7,000 (police estimate) and 10,000 people marched against Proposition 8 today in San Diego, from Hillcrest, the primary gayborhood, to North Park, the secondary gayborhood -- a distance of about two miles.


Salt Lake City
The Salt Lake Tribune reports:

Opponents of a measure that banned gay marriage in California took their outrage to the spiritual hub of Mormonism on Friday.
More than 3,000 people swarmed downtown Salt Lake City to march past the LDS temple and church headquarters, protesting Mormon involvement in the campaign for California's Proposition 8. The measure, which defined marriage as exclusively between a man and a woman, passed this week.
A sea of signs in City Creek Park, where the march began, screamed out messages including, "I didn't vote on your marriage," "Mormons once persecuted . . . Now persecutors," and "Jesus said love everyone." Others read, "Proud of my two moms" and "Protect traditional marriage. Ban divorce."

New York City
The Prop 8 NYC Protest Facebook page has more info on the upcoming NYC protest:

Tens of thousands of our brothers and sisters are in the streets in California and Salt Lake City and around the country protesting the votes banning same-sex marriage in California. Join them! Make your voices heard right here in New York City. We will tell the Mormon Church how we feel about its relentless campaign to condemn and control our lives. Join us in speaking out against hate and discrimination! Stop them taking away your rights!

Yglesias argues against the notion that gays pressed too hard and too fast for marriage by calling upon the judicial rather than the legislative branch to legalize gay marriage:

That aside, granting the backlash hypothetically, I never quite understand what the upshot of this sort of analysis is. Say you’re living your life with your partner and you want to get married. But then the local legal authorities tell you that you can’t get married. That seems like unfair discrimination to you, so you inquire with an attorney. The attorney says, yes, your state has never allowed a man to be legally wed to another man, but he agrees with you that it’s unfair. And not just unfair, illegal, a violation of your state constitution’s guarantees of equal rights. So you sue! Then the case comes before a judge and the judge thinks, yeah, the local authorities’ action is a violation of the state constitution’s guarantee of equal rights. Is the judge supposed to rule against you even though he thinks your case has merits, offering as his reasoning “it would be counterproductive to the long-term political strategy of the gay rights movement for me to offer the ruling I believe to be correct”? That doesn’t sound right.

Via No on H8 -- A list of upcoming Prop 8 protests:

FRIDAY
No On Prop 8 Peaceful Protest & Candlelight Vigil - Palm Springs, Friday 11/7 5pm Palm Springs City Hall, 3200 Tahquitz Canyon Way, Palm Springs

No On Prop 8 Protest March - San Francisco, Friday 11/7 5:30pm
From Civic Center, Market & 7th Streets, San Francisco, March will continue to Delores Park.

No On Prop 8 Candlelight Vigil - Merced, Friday 11/7 6pm
Veterans Park On M Street, Merced, contact: Leslie or Eileen, PLFLAG Merced 209-725-1140

No On Prop 8 Protest Rally - Long Beach, Friday 11/7 7pm
Starts at E. Redondo Avenue & Broadway, Long Beach, Continues to Junipero & Broadway by 7:30, ending at Broadway & Alimitos (Hamburger Mary's).

No On Prop 8 Protest Rally - San Diego, Friday 11/7 9pm
Balboa Park, San Diego, Marching to City Hall

SATURDAY
Inland Empire NO on Prop 8 After Rally - Rancho Cucamonga, Saturday 11/8 11am Heritage Park, 5546 Beryl Street, Rancho Cucamonga
Please bring a chair with you! Contact: Patrick Milliner, NO on Prop 8: patrickmilliner@yahoo.com

No On Prop 8 Protest - San Diego/Hillcrest, Saturday 11/8 12noon
1st & University, San Diego. Marching to 30th in North Park.

No On Prop 8 Protest Rally - Huntington Beach, Saturday 11/8 2pm
Huntington Beach Pier, Huntington Beach

No On Prop 8 Protest March & Vigil - Laguna Beach, Saturday 11/8 5:30pm City Hall 505 Forest Avenue, Laguna Beach. Marching to Main Beach

No On Prop 8 Protest Rally - Los Angeles/Silverlake, Saturday, 11/8 6pm. Gather at Sunset Junction, corner of Sunset & Santa Monica Blvds., Silver Lake

SUNDAY
No On Prop 8 Protest Rally - Sacramento, Sunday 11/9 1-4pm
Capitol Building (west steps), Sacramento, West Steps of the State Capitol. Rally. Speakers. Show up and be proud. Bring Signs, Wear Protest Shirts. People from SF will be showing up at the West Steps to show support with us.

No On Prop 8 Candlelight Vigil - Rancho Santa Margarita, Sunday 11/9 5-8pm Lake Santa Margarita, Santa Margarita Pkwy, Rancho Santa Margarita, Contact: teenageanthem@gmail.com

LATER THIS MONTH
No On Prop 8 Protest - Irvine, Thursday 11/13 4:30pm
Corner of Campus & Culver Drive, Irvine, Marching to Culver & Alton.

No On Prop 8 Peaceful Protest & Candlelight Vigil - Long Beach, Saturday 11/29 7pm, Long Beach Performing Arts Center, 300 E. Ocean Blvd., Long Beach

Got a "No On Prop 8" event you want to publicize? Need more info?
Go to No on H8.

Via the AP:

LOS ANGELES (AP) -- . . . The ballot measure passed Tuesday, which was sponsored by a coalition of religious and social conservative groups, amends the California Constitution to define marriage as a heterosexual act. It overides a state Supreme Court ruling that briefly gave same-sex couples the right to wed.

The protest came amid questions about whether attempts to overturn the prohibition can succeed and whether the 18,000 same-sex marriages performed in California over the past four months are in any danger.

For Cody Krebs, 27, four months was not enough time to fulfill his "intense hope" to marry one day; he and his boyfriend have been together for little more than a year, so they aren't ready to wed.

On Thursday, Krebs dodged eggs hurled at protesters from an apartment building. He said he'd seen worse growing up in Salt Lake City.

"It's important to come out like this because it gets the gay community into the public eye," Krebs said. "I feel like this has started a lot of conversations that had to get started."

The demonstration began outside the temple in the Westwood section of Los Angeles and noisily spilled through the western side of the city, with chants of "Separate church and state" and "What do we want? Equal rights." Some protesters waved signs saying "No on H8" or "I didn't vote against your marriage," and many equated the issue with the civil rights struggle.

Two people were arrested after a confrontation between the crowd and an occupant of a pickup truck that had a banner supporting Proposition 8. One demonstrator ended up with a bloody nose in the fracas. Seven arrests occurred during Los Angeles-area street marches late Wednesday.

It looks like the African-American and the Latino vote in California played important parts in getting Prop 8 passed. Vote by race from CNN:

Yes No
White 49% 51%
African-
American 70% 30%
Latino 53% 47%
Asian 49% 51%
Other 51% 49%

From Sebastian:

A few people seem to be interested in whether or not the black vote was decisive. If the following standard analysis assumptions are true the answer is probably a very close "no", but at least one of the assumptions seems very possibly false and with other fairly likely assumptions the answer looks like a "yes."

My assumptions are:
1.that the vote among black people was as reported (69% Yes on 8).
2.that black people make up 6.7% of the CA population
3.that black people represented a share of the votes equal to their share of the population

You can read a breakdown of all the number over at his site.

From this information, I think that, yes, as I have been saying over and over, Obama should have made a direct and overt appeal to African-American voters in California to consider gay marriage as part of the civil rights movement. But beyond that, these numbers provide an insight into the fracturing of civil rights into gay and African-American factions, and they tell us where we need to focus our attention. The numbers also to tell us that we need to push to make an appeal that recognizes and includes brown people as much as black and white.

This is a time to be careful, as well. There is no need for the battle for gay rights to turn into a battle against African-Americans. Dan Savage has written a post on his blog called "Black Homophobia" that is anything but racist, but it probably could have been worded a little more carefully. Right now, I think a little extra care will go a long way.

These are all, as my former employer used to say, "areas of opportunity." But we can braid all of our yet-to-be-realized civil rights into one enormous effort. And then we can all set our bags down.

I don't always, or even often, agree with Andrew Sullivan. But, as a married gay man, he has written an aching call for equality that is, well, inspirational. And soothing.

Yes, it is heart-breaking: it is always hard to be in a tiny minority whose rights and dignity are removed by a majority. It's a brutal rebuke to the state supreme court, and enshrinement in California's constitution that gay couples are now second-class citizens and second class human beings. Massively funded by the Mormon church, a religious majority finally managed to put gay people in the back of the bus in the biggest state of the union. The refusal of Schwarzenegger to really oppose the measure and Obama's luke-warm opposition didn't help. And cruelly, a very hefty black turnout, as feared, was one of the factors that defeated us, according to the exit poll. Today this is one of the solaces to a hard right and a Republican party that sees gay people as the least real of Americans.

. . . If we had won this, this civil rights battle would be all but over. Now, it isn't. So we get back to work, arguing, talking. speaking, debating, writing, blogging, and struggling to change more minds. The hope for equality can never be extinguished, however hard our opponents try. And in the unlikely history of America, there has never been anything false about hope.

Read it in its entirety. It's worth it.

I'm not the only one who feels bittersweet today. I am, of course, watching The View (video to come), and listening to Whoopi and Sherri talk about what it means to be a minority in America made me cry. Cry because the Obama win is so incredible, and cry because our country has decided that our civil rights aren't worth as much as everyone else's.

I keep thinking that maybe a lot of people just need someone to feel better than. Maybe these people need to tell gays that they are worth less precisely because these same people have finally finally finally started to tangibly equalize the worth of other minorities.

Below are some thoughts from other gay sites.

GLAAD:

This election represents a critical moment for our nation and both celebration and disappointment for our community's pursuit of fairness and equality. After eight years of an administration that fed on the most divisive kinds of anti-gay politics, we are now able to greet a president-elect whose commitment to inclusion has the potential to elevate and fundamentally redefine the national discussion about our community.

However, we are disappointed and disheartened by results in Arkansas, Arizona and Florida, where we saw laws passed that are intended to hurt loving, committed couples and families. As we await the final results of our movement's unprecedented fight to defeat Proposition 8 in California, we celebrate Connecticut voters' rejection of a measure that could have endangered marriage equality in that state.

Andrew Sullivan:

It looks grim to me, but still extremely close with 10 percent of precincts yet to partially or fully report and a a 51.9 to 48.1 split in favor of stripping gay couples of the right to marry in California. I'll write later when we get the final result. It's too heart-breaking to write anything before we know for absolutely sure we have been defeated. And, as I tossed and turned tonight trying to sleep, after last night's massive wave of relief, I felt sure that in the long arc of history, we shall prevail.

Gay Rights:

But while this Election night will have progressives buzzing for days, it's worth noting that Election 2008 might not be so good on the gay rights front. Though we won't know for sure for a few more hours, it appears that Amendment 2 has passed in Florida, Proposition 102 has passed in Arizona, and Proposed Initiative Act 1 has passed in Arkansas. The numbers for Prop 8 in California are way too close to call right now, but the exit polling doesn't look good.

So while tonight is a night for the history books, it's also a night to remember that in the battle for equal rights for LGBT persons, we still have a lot of work to do.

Good As You

We LGBT people wake up today to two historic developments. One, the election of our first African-American president, shows us how far we have come. The other -- the easy passage of anti-gay measures in Florida, Arizona, and Arkansas, as well as the possible passage of the rights-depriving Prop 8 in California -- shows us how far some of us still have to go before we can benignly, non-controversially claim our peace. And perhaps the hardest part? That these two historic developments come with great overlap. It might be easy to tell ourselves that only the "haters" went against us, but the truth is that many Democrats (even some that identified as liberal, according to exit polls) also cast a vote against our equality. It can help to be a bit of a mindfuck for progressive queer people.

Pam's House Blend:

Perhaps I should feel hopeful that in this president we'll have the best chance for a fully inclusive ENDA, have the best chance for seeing a Matthew Sheppard Act, and the best chance for letting gay and lesbian servicemembers serve openly in our military. Of course, such hopes are marred by the results of the state initiatives this past election day.

And a whole bunch of others. I'm looking into what the next steps are, and I'll put a post together as soon as I find some information about what we can do to fix this.

I've been trying to figure out what exactly needs to happen today to defeat Prop 8. Do we need to have a 2/3 majority? A simple majority? It turns out that all either side needs is a simple majority.

What is a "simple majority?" It's exactly what it sounds like -- it's a voting requirement of more than 50% of all ballots cast. [Wikipedia]

This is why every vote counts. Since the California Supreme Court ruling, more than 18,000 gay and lesbian couples have gotten married in California.

Wanda Sykes talks to Ellen about Prop 8.

"Five Years on Mars" -- Did anyone else this this one-hour special on The National Geographic Channel? I loved watching those cute little Mars Rovers. It was "Wall-E." Only good.

Adam Levine throws Halloween party

The New York Times has a great interview with Rutina Wesley, the actress on "True Blood" who plays Tara Thornton, the smart, mean and sexy best friend of Sookie.
“I get to create this girl and make her not the stereotypical — for lack of a better phrase — black woman with an attitude. We see a lot of that. But with Tara we’re also going to see a woman who has been through a lot of things.”

Gay double wedding, includes the father of the groom. I think I saw that on Ashton Cruz . . . .

Ryan Reynolds runs the New York City Marathon in 3:50:22.

John Cho, of Harold and Kumar fame (and the new Sulu in the new Star Trek) comes out against Prop 8

Heroes execs fired! Better late than never . . . .

Prisons go green (There was a dumb prison-sex joke that I resisted here. You're welcome.)

Below, a hot Anderson Cooper and his package work out with Kelly Ripa last week.
.