Ob USElectionCommentary

[firecat]

Yay Democratic House. Impeach, impeach, impeach.

Yay no Republican gains in major races.

Hope for tied Senate (still too close to call, last I checked).

Yay no California Prop 85 (mandatory waiting period and parental notification if minor daughter seeks abortion). Yay South Dakotans for voting down their anti-abortion initiative.

Mad about a bunch of "no gay marriage" amendments passing. (But yay Arizonans for defeating theirs!)

Pretty scared at the 71% yes vote on California's Prop 83 ("Sex offenders released from prison would be monitored with Global Positioning System (GPS) devices...for life. Registered sex offenders would not be allowed to reside within 2,000 feet of a school or park." [i.e., not in any urban areas whatsoever]). It just seems to me that the definition of "sex offender" could change awfully suddenly to include consensual behavior among adults.

Comments

[lissamc.livejournal.com]

Arizona was a close call, and I think we wouldn't have won if the folks writing the proposition hadn't overstepped. They not only wanted one man/one woman definition, but wanted to define out of existence anything else that looked like marriage, at least in the eyes of the government recognition. That would make domestic partnerships not viable for government recognition...which means that folks, gay *and* straight, who are working for the government and are already receiving benefits for their families under their domestic partnership would lose those benefits. The folks fighting to defeat the proposition sidestepped the issue of gay marriage entirely, and went after the 'gay marriage is already illegal here so this doesn't affect that--all you are really doing is taking away people's current benefits, and that's just mean' line. If the proposition hadn't been shown to negatively affect straight folks, it wouldn't have made it. *sigh*

[firecat]

I'm glad that enough people listened to that argument in AZ - it appears that in Virginia they did not.