Essential

Outrage Over Proposition 8

Two bloggers on the defeat of same-sex marriage in California.

In wake of Barack Obama’s victory, American liberals are pausing to let the defeat of Proposition 8 rain on their parade. "It's a brutal rebuke to the state supreme court," writes Andrew Sullivan, "and enshrinement in California's constitution that gay couples are now second-class citizens and second class human beings." And, at Pam's House Blend, Autumn Sandeen notes the passage of Proposition 2, which prohibits the inhumane confinement of farm animals. She writes, "If one evaluates by the votes cast and the percentages of the votes cast, the rights of farm animals appear to be more important to Californians than the rights of gay and lesbian human beings." “If we had won this," Sullivan writes, "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."