There is nothing mysterious at all about this. Obama ran a hateful campaign, primarily against women, but partially against gays. His idiot supporters took him up on the hate. That's all that happened. People who run around in "Sarah Palin Is a Cunt" t-shirt are pretty much at the bottom of the food chain - intellectually speaking, and that's who supported obama. And his supporters who have a sufficiently developed nervous system and opposable thumbs didn't bother to tell those jokers to knock it off.

This is like saying people you're shocked that working class people voted for Strom Thurmond and then voted for segregation - duh! If you support Obama, you support misogyny and homophobia - it's part of the equation. You cannot oppose misogyny and support Obama - you just can't - anymore that you can oppose racism and support David Duke.

The common sense failure is first on the part on the Obama campaign who embraced their misogynistic, homophobic shit and then on the part of his supporters who didn't take a stand when Obama did that stuff. This is the failure of the left = they let Obama get away with being a bigot and failed to stand on principle because they thought he was cool.

Bigotry isn't cool. Supporting Obama is moral failure just like supporting Strom Thurmond was.

Sure, that happened. But that's not all that happened. Sheesh!

"First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win." -- Mahatma Gandhi

There are a couple of obvious things here which Digby misses. One of them is that maybe people ARE consistent, and Obama simply successfully telegraphed his "centrist", pro-fetus, fagz-r-icky, neo-Reagan roots to people like values voters who continued to favor their Rethuglican incumbents and their hateful referenda.

The 2nd is precisely why our budding theocracy is a problem: pretty much all churches suck, as far as GLBT rights are concerned. And "the Black Church" is no exception, especially in the politics of large urban centers.

I think we need to see more numbers - a LOT more - before buying into any media narrative, especially the one the NY Times started promoting a while back about faithy African-Americans voting against gays, because it may in fact not be true. The final tally on Prop 8 pretty much matched several of the bad-news polls. Not a huge surprise there. (Florida was actually more shocking. 60+%. Not much reaches over 60% these days...)

In the meantime, leaders lead, and Obama failed to really make things clear. He was even more vague than CA's governor Gropenator in his supposed "opposition" to Prop 8. He didn't even try, really. He couldn't even muster Biden's carefully worded claim that Biden would personally vote against Prop 8 were he in CA. And he went on MTV the night before the election saying he hates teh ghey marriage.

Digby's really letting him off the hook on this one. Yes, voters suck and do inexplicable things, but like Nader in 2000, many people saw this one coming a mile away. No one man can guarantee anything, but it'd be nice to look up to the Democratic president-elect and think, like Clinton back in 1993, that he actually tried something.

that I feel for my "blue" state today. I went to bed last night with a slight hope that Prop 8 will not pass, that people were better than that, more open-minded, less hateful. I was proven wrong again.

I really thought we'd moved onto higher ground here. Very sad.

of amendments being pushed by the right -- we saw one of each this time, and will see tons more in '12.

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iaJOj... -- Neb. voters approve ban on affirmative action

-- " Nebraska voters have approved a ban on government-sponsored affirmative action.

The constitutional amendment approved Tuesday bars bar state and local governments from giving preferential treatment to people on the basis of race, sex, ethnicity or national origin. ..."

http://www.kvoa.com/Global/story.asp?S=9... -- "Some county clerks in California are already putting a stop to same-sex marriages, after yesterday's voter approval of an amendment to the state constitution that bans those marriages. ..."

What's the opposite of evolution?

Also, ponder the photos, drink deep.

Weekly Churchgoers 82/18 Yes
A Few Times a Year 59/41 No
Never Attend Church 83/17 No

Extending right wing influence depends on increasing individual ignorance. Many who support right wing policy now are plain stupid. Those who are not refuse to try to understand anything not promoted by the religious bigots and hatemongers like limpdick and his pretenders. I describe it as partisanship inflamed by jerkoffs like limpdick. Bush's approval rating is 20%, solely made up with the stupid and the ignorant.

From CNN. The article refers to 'exit polling' but it's not clear whether they mean their own or someone else's, no way to get a read on how trustworthy, but:

First-time voters cast their ballots against the proposition by a 64 percent to 36 percent margin. The rest of the electorate favored the amendment 52 percent to 48 percent. [wish they'd done a crosstab on age breakdowns for first-time voters]

Californians who attend church weekly voted for Proposition 8 by an 83 percent to 17 percent. Those who attended church occasionally voted 40 percent in favor and 60 percent opposed. Californians who never attend church were 14 percent in favor and 86 percent against.

College graduates opposed Proposition 8 by a 57 percent to 43 percent margin. Those without a college degree favored it, 53 percent to 47 percent.

African-Americans voted for Proposition 8 by a 69 percent to 31 percent margin. However, 55 percent of white voters and 52 percent of Hispanics voted against the proposition.

Digby's right about the incoherence of American politics, but she's still drinking weak, exculpation by omission tea by not even mentioning Obama's failure to lead on this issue. Or failure to at least remain neutral. Sigh. Could he not at least try for Neville Chamberlain-like stature on equality issues that don't involve himself (or Michelle or the girls)?

As the economy gets worse, so will the homophobia codified into law. A bad economy is just a fetid petri dish for further hatred against any 'not like us' group, even when the country's leader isn't also chivvying the division and emnity along his own self.

Too bad the much-vaunted 'youth vote' turned out to be a big crock, if it had been real it might have turned the tide.

for unmarried partners? FL's?

Good question.

The actual text of the proposition is quite short:

Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California.

Editorial aside: this is a very badly worded amendment, even from supporters' point of view.

Since it is pretty vague, how it could affect civil unions will depend on how the courts interpret it and how it is enforced. I think no effect on civil unions is pretty likely given that it was put forth as a right by the courts in the first place, so they'd construe it pretty narrowly. Plus, to challenge civil unions based on this amendment, supporters would have to argue that civil unions = marriage, which would probably make their heads explode.

Digging up the text of the amendment, it suddenly struck me, what if California just didn't enforce the amendment? We've all watched as Bush has blatantly ignored the U.S. Constitution. What if the Governator as chief exec just didn't enforce it? If the courts just ignored it? Sort of like a jury nullification, just statewide? Now my head is going to explode, because I believe in the process of law (as imperfect and f*cked up as it can be), but if ever a law was ripe for civil disobedience...

The legal challenges to it will likely fail (from what I understand the main argument is that it's unconstitutional, although maybe that's just the media's stupid interpretation -- they seldom get legal arguments right -- and you can't really succeed challenging an constitutional amendment as unconstitutional), but with a legal challenge opponents might at least get a delay on enactment for a while. If opponents work to get a counter-amendment on the ballot in 2010, it may do much better in an election where Obama's not on the ballot and turnout would be low among his supporters.

The text of Florida's amendment:

Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.

This obviously totally sucks since a reasonable legal interpretation is that 'treated as marriage' bars civil unions too. And Florida courts are not nec. as liberal as California ones, so I think there's less hope for a strict construction that would exclude unions. Amendments in FL need 60% to pass so a counter-amendment ballot petition in an off-year election with low Obama supporter turnout is unlikely to help.

I couldn't find hard numbers on demographics, but the Miami Herald reports:

Black voters overwhelmingly supported Obama and Hispanic voters favored him, but both groups - approximately a quarter of Florida voters - also approved the amendment by significant margins.