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As I write this, we know that Senator Obama will be the next president and that is indeed great news! But, though only 15% of the precincts are reporting in California, I fear that proposition 8 will pass.

It looks like this could be a night where Obama wins by a greater margin than I could have imagined and equality in California falls by a greater margin than I would have expected. Indeed, I was hopeful that proposition 8 would fail in the most progressive state in the country. Unfortunately, hatred and bigotry look like they have won another temporary victory.

Regardless of how that turns out, at worst it can only delay the inevitable. As gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender members of our society become more accepted, as the lies and myths are debunked, the opposition to full equality will crumble. It looks like it may take longer than we’d hoped. As I head off to get some sleep, maybe the tide will change, but even if it doesn’t, it is only a matter of time.

Now that a week has gone by and I’ve been able to put the slightest bit of emotional distance between what sanity remains to me and Election Day, I thought I might relate some of the encounters I had with people at the polls. For the most part it was a positive experience. People in Reston are definitely supporters of diversity!

• Congressman Moran stopped by early in the morning and thanked me for working against the amendment. He has been a wonderful supporter of equality in Congress and it was great to hear in his voice just how much he meant it.
• One republican poll worker who had not yet voted seemed quite concerned about the possible side effects of the amendment (sadly he seemed only midly concerned about the intended effects) but after a fair amount of discussion it seemed he was likely to vote no.
• A trio of highschool girls who were also republican poll workers (and wow, did that hurt my head) were against the amendment as obviously awful except for one who said, “I think I voted yes by mistake.”
• The older woman who, when she saw what I was handing out, said she was definitely voting yes. When I asked if she read the whole thing, she said it didn’t matter because she knew how she was voting.
• The pair of women who walked up together and said, “Duh! Of course,” when I asked them to vote no.
• There was a man who asked for me to explain what a vote yes and a vote no meant. The language of the amendment was apparently too convoluted for him.
• There was an evangelical Christian republican poll worker who proved to me that you can’t argue with someone who accepts as an axiom that you are wrong. His response was that perhaps if I prayed more that God would set me straight (pun intended in my paraphrase).
• The democratic poll workers were all amazingly supprtive. They were often as vocal as I was in their opposition to the amendment.
• There were three constitutional amendments on the ballot. The republicans tooka formal position in their sample ballot only on one. I’ll give you one guess as to which one that was.
• The number of people who knew how they were going to vote on everything surprised me. These people didn’t want any party’s sample ballot though some of them would take my non-partisan literature.
• The number of people who only wanted a particular party’s sample ballot was kind of scary. I can’t imagine being so mindless that I would do what any political party wanted me to do without a fair amount of forethought.

I could probably continue on like this for longer than anyone would want to read. To say that it was an educational day would be an understatement. It was certainly an exhausting day. Spending about 11 hours on my feet handing out literature was definitely tiring. As I drifted off to sleep that night, I was still hearing, “Please vote ‘no’ on number 1″ in my head. I was afraid I would be hearing it for days whenever there was a quiet moment but fortunately it was just the one night. Even though I’m not sure my presence really influenced many undecided voters (based on comparing those precincts with other nearby precincts that didn’t have a coalition poll worker), it was interesting to see the process in action.

I want to thank all of my friends who came out to vote yesterday. These people stood against hatred, bigotry, intolerance and stood up for equality, tolerance and acceptance. Unfortunately, they don’t seem to be the typical Virginian. I’ve always thought my friends were special, but I didn’t realize just how blessed I was to know them until yesterday.

In the weeks leading up to the election and even in the final few days, it seemed momentum was beginning to shift in our direction. Clearly, polls tell an incomplete picture.

The one thing that was clear was that northern Virginia was going to be a place where intolerance would not carry the day. I’m happy to say that was true. I live in district 8 which includes parts or all of Arlington, Fairfax, Alexandria and Falls Church. People voted against evil by 2 to 1. Unfortunately, statewide, they supported the amendment by 57% to 43%. If the polls were accurate this means that both the undecided vote and the inherent uncertainty in the poll went almost entirely toward the other side.

Only two districts voted against the amendment. District 8, my own, as I mentioned above and district 3. District 3 voted against the amendment by 53% to 47%, but only two jurisdictions carried the day, Richmond voted overwhelmingly against the amendment with 73% against. Also, Herico County eeked out a narrow majority of no votes by about 1%.

District 9 seems to be the heartland of hatred in the state, supporting the amendment by 3 to 1.

Looking at counties, rather than districts, here are the islands of hope within Virginia: Albemarle County (59% no), Arlington (74% no), Fairfax County (54% no), Alexandria (70% no), Charlottesville (77% no), Fairfax City (52% no), Falls Church (69% no), Fredericksburg (58% no), Lexington (62% no), Norfolk (54% no), Petersburg (65% no), Richmond (69% no) and Williamsburg (62% no).

So, much as I knew it was a long shot, Virginia was not the first to defeat a gay marriage ban at the polls. It wasn’t even as close as I thought it could be. I suppose Jerry Falwell, Pat Buchanan and their ilk still have a stranglehold on the minds of most Virginians.

However, Arizona, may have defeated it’s constitutional ban! The no’s carried the day by 51% to 49%. However, it hasn’t been officially confirmed.

Colorado defeated it’s domestic partnership amendment and passed it’s constitutional ban. Idaho passed it’s ban. South Carolina passed it’s ban as did South Dakota and Tennessee.

Of this, only Arizona’s possible defeat is a true surprise. If there is any surprise here at home it’s that the “yes” votes were less than 60% of the population. This proves the tide is slowly turning but it takes time to truly change people’s minds. Unfortunately, during that time, countless of people’s lives will be harmed.

Now we find out just how right or wrong the attorney general is. My expectation is that an assault on domestic partnership benefits will be next. And another attempt at an adoption ban. I hope that unmarried heterosexual couples won’t be caught in the net cast by the amendment. But, if they are, they can send their thank you notes to Delegates Marshall, Senator Newman and their comrades. The cynical part of me says that they did it to themselves, but I can still feel sorry and pity for them.

I’ve reached the point of rambling so I’ll finish with this. We lost. Even knowing that was the likely outcome, I’m disappointed. We did make progress. People are beginning to understand. I hoped that the politics of fear and hate were finally going to break down. While there was progress, it still has a long way to go.

The only question is will we turn the tide before the American Taliban gets a complete stranglehold on all our lives? Because once they run out ways to legislate homophobia, who will they target next?

On Friday, October 27th, the Fairfax County Federation of Citizens Associations and the Fairfax Committee of 100 co-sponsored a debate about Question #1, the Marshall/Newman “marriage” Amendment at the Fairfax Government Center.
Standing against the amendment were Jim Dyke, a partner at McGuire Woods and a former VA Secretary of Education, and Doug Koelemay, Managing Director at Qorvis Communications. Standing for the amendment were Delegate Bob Marshall, patron of the amendment and Victoria Cobb, executive director of the Family Foundation of Virginia. A Fairfax Public Access, Channel 10, film crew were taping; look on Channel 10 for replays of the event.

On a night where the weather was uncooperative, somewhere between 100 and 200 people showed up to hear the debate. Unfortunately, it seemed to be mostly a theater of the decided as roughly 80% of the audience seemed to strongly disapprove of the amendment with perhaps 20% of the audience in favor of it. It wasn’t clear how many undecided voters were actually there. This shows how much of a non-issue this is for the general public when only people whose lives are personally affected and those who through intolerance or misunderstanding want to hurt us.

The other disappointment was that the format was not interactive. Though audience questions were taken, they had to be pre-written before the debate started and were selected by the event sponsors. While this does allow them to screen out off topic questions, it doesn’t allow any follow up based on answers.

Still, despite this limitation, the event was interesting.

For example, according to Mrs. Cobb, our families aren’t families. According to her, we are “so-called families.” For a person who claims to be so concerned about the welfare of families to be so committed to working to ensure ours are disadvantaged is beyond comprehension.

Delegate Marshall reprised his well-worn litany of exaggerations and generalizations quoting limited studies and questionable statistics he said support his position that children should only be raised by heterosexuals, therefore marriage should be reserved for heterosexuals. He said “gay marriage is like a square circle; not possible.”

Mr. McQuire and Mr. Koelemay made some excellent points about the unintended consequences of the amendment, some of the most serious being the consequences to victims of domestic violence. Ms. Cobb and Delegate Marshall tried to gloss over with responses that amounted to, “that can’t happen here. Trust us. If it does, we’ll fix it.” Something says they’d be very selective about the “unintended” consequences they decided to fix.

Sadly, the following questions that should have been asked, never were given a hearing:

How does allowing two men or two women to marry affect a single heterosexual marriage?

Name one consequence of gay marriage in Massachusetts except that thousands of gay couples have been able to protect their families?

Since these questions were not answered, make sure they continue to be asked! Questions like these expose the hypocrisy of the pro-amendment position, and those people who are undecided about how to vote need to hear both the questions and the loud lack of an answer.

Spain’s recently passed law to allow same-sex marriage went into effect over the weekend. While America debates banning flag burning and making discrimination against lesbian and gay Ameicans part of our constitution, Spain has stepped up and said that marriage is a civil right and ensured that it is extended to all of its citizens. The law makes Spain the third nation to pass a law allowing gay and lesbians to marry. It joins the Netherlands and Belgium. Canada is poised to become the fourth later this year.

The Catholic Church is apalled that Spain would do such a thing. Pope Benedict XVI even called on Spanish government officials to defy the law and refuse to carry out the ban. The level of hypocrisy in the leadership of the Catholic Church is amazing to behold. They spend years covering up the actions of their own pedophile priests, even to the point of allowing them to continue their practices in differenc dioces yet to allow two human beings to formally join their lives together in a loving, committed relationship is something they find immoral. To quote Inigo Montoya from the Princess Bride, “They keep using that word. I do not think it means what they think it means.”

Fortunately, not all Christians are so rigidly closed-minded. The United Church of Christ has endorsed the concept of marriage equality. It is claimed that they are the largest Church in the US to support marriage equality. I congratulate them on their action and hope that Bush and his corps of advisors that uses religion as a weapon will take note that not all Americans will tolerate that behavior.

Congratulations to Spain!