I think these two cartoons pretty much sum up how I feel today.

Via 365Gay.com:

(San Francisco, California) At least three lawsuits are are in the works to challenge Proposition 8, a proposed amendment to the California constitution that would ban same-sex marriage.

One of the suits is planned by City of San Francisco attorney Dennis Herrera’s office. A second is by the three LGBT groups that won the historic California Supreme Court ruling that allowed same-sex marriage in the state. The third is by one of the couples who were married after the court ruling went into effect in May.

All three suits would begin if Prop 8 passes.

With 95 percent of the vote in across California the “Yes” votes have a slim lead: 52 - 48 percent. Though some outlets called the ballot measure in favor of the anti-gay ban a few hours ago, as many as 3 million ballots - late absentee and provisional ballots - are left to be counted.

It is those ballots that opponents of the amendment are counting on for the measure’s defeat. But most political watchers in the state say it is unlikely the additional ballots will change the result.

The American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and the National Center for Lesbian Rights filed a writ petition before the California Supreme Court on Wednesday, a preliminary move to a suit.

The fight ain't over yet. Check out what you can do on the myspace page for No on (H8).

I wasn't sure how real this was last night, but will.i.am was being interviewed by hologram. For real. It looks just like when the Star Trek characters would get beamed up. Watch will.i.am's hologram interview in the first video (fast-forward about 20%), and then watch an explanation of the technology in the second video.

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.

Here's a clip from today's View. Watching Sherri cry is heart-wrenching. It's in these kind of moments that we can see, with our own eyes, how racism and sexism and homophobia bend and twist each one of us until we are stunted versions of ourselves. And how we pass on the damage to those around us. More importantly, we can see what happens when we finally get to stand up straight. The good fight is still the good fight.

I am still looking for the clip of Whoopi at the very beginning of the show when she says, "I've always considered myself an American, but for the first time I feel like I can put my bags down." Amazing.

Hillary Clinton issues her statement:

Tonight, we are celebrating an historic victory for the American people. This was a long and hard-fought campaign but the result was well worth the wait.

Together, under the leadership of President Barack Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and a Democratic Congress, we will chart a better course to build a new economy and rebuild our leadership in the world. And I look forward to doing all that I can to support President Obama and Vice President Biden in the difficult work that lies ahead.

For too long, middle-class families in this country have felt invisible, struggling alone as wages stagnate, jobs disappear and the costs of daily life climb upward. In quiet, solitary acts of citizenship, American voters gave voice to their hopes and their values, voted for change and refused to be invisible any longer. [wowOwow]

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.

Ezra Klein has written a great post-election article. It's worth quoting at length:

Barack Hussein Obama was, arguably, the country's most unlikely candidate for highest office. He embodied, or at least invoked, much of what America feared. His color recalled our racist past. His name was a reminder of our anxious present. His spiritual mentor displayed a streak of radical Afro-nationalism. He knew domestic terrorists and had lived in predominantly Muslim countries. There was hardly a specter lurking in the American subconscious that he did not call forth.

And that was his great strength. He robbed fear of its ability to work through quiet insinuation. He forced America to confront its own subconscious. Obama actually is black. His middle name actually is "Hussein." He actually does know William Ayers. He actually was married by Jeremiah Wright. He actually had lived in Indonesia. These were not smears, though they were often used as such. They were facts. And this election was fundamentally about what happened when fear collided with fact.

For the first time, America had to articulate what exactly it feared. Did it truly believe that the middle name "Hussein" suggested a terrorist threat to the country? Well, no. Did it genuinely think Obama a radical Afro-nationalist who had dedicated his life to serving a country he loathed? Probably not. Did it actually seem plausible that Obama wanted to become president so he could finish the job the Weathermen started? Unlikely. The shadowy terrors that animated American politics in the dark aftermath of 9-11 receded. Time had passed. To borrow a line, it was morning in America, and our country looked different in the clean light of the dawn. And so too did its problems.

In 2008, America awoke to new anxieties. Concrete dangers. If the threat of shadowy terrorist networks is amorphous and hard to define, the dangers of an economic collapse are clear and easily explained, as is the horror of a city drowning while its government panics. There is nothing vague about the grim reality of a failed war nor anything ineffable in the relentless rise in health insurance costs. Like a hypochondriac who forgets his mysterious headaches when he must suddenly deal with his wife's cancer, America found there was plenty to worry about but little time to be afraid.

Indeed, the election results suggest something striking: America has forgotten. September 11 has not disappeared from our memory, of course, but we have recovered from the blow. We have forgotten how it felt to be afraid, and so, yesterday, we forgot to vote our fears. And in doing, we have elected a black president with a Muslim name. Fear again proved but a temporary detour from our history's long arc toward justice. [The American Prospect]

I'm listening to Spike Lee being interviewed on Joe Scarborough's morning show, and Spike Lee just said it right. He defined, for me at least, one of the aspects of Conservatives that is so unappealing. (I was taking dictation as fast as I could while he was speaking, but I'm still going to paraphrase just a bit.) Spike Lee said, "The Republicans lost becase the America of 'Leave It to Beaver' doesn't exist anymore. Republicans have been appealing to a world that no longer exists. The mosaic of support behind Obama - black, white, brown, gay straight - that's the real America. Giuliani and the other guys are stuck in the 1950s!"

The Conservative ideology is just so incredibly un-modern.

I'll look for video of the interview to post.

This was not a good election for us gays. The attempts to remove civil rights from gays were successful.

Florida's Amendment 2 passed by a margin of 2-1.

Arizona's Prop 102 passed 56%-44%.

And it looks like California's Prop 8 passed as well. 92% of precincts have reported, but we're behind by more than 350,000 votes.

I can't help but feel that, on a night that defined "historic," on a day that created a new and better path for America, we were left behind.