Proposition 8 Passes

Once again, congratulations to the 'Bama for Baracking the Vote!

The majority of the American public were able to look past Obama's race to give him a landslide electoral vote. (Interestingly, he only won about 50% of the vote compared with 47% for McCain. Funny how the American voting system works, eh?)

However, this same public has gone a step back for another minority group: lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people. Unfortunately, Proposition 8 has passed in the state of California. This means that the California Constitution will be amended to define marriage as between a man and a woman, once again making same-sex marriage illegal. Prop 8 passed mainly because of the huge amounts of money poured into anti-gay advertising by the Mormon and Roman-Catholic church. Despite donations and campaigning from such people such as Brad Pitt and Ellen Degeneres, anti-Prop 8 groups such as the Human Rights Campaign simply couldn't compete with that money and power.

This is a huge setback for the gay rights movement, especially considering three other states passed anti-gay measures, including gay marriage bans in Arizona and Florida, and a measure that bans unmarried couples (ie LGBT couples) from adopting or fostering children in Florida. 30 US states have already banned gay marriage, and it is only legal in Connecticut and Massachusetts (maybe they only support gay marriage in states with really long and hard to spell names?).

America proclaims to be a country that values equality. But they've got a long way to go. In American society, coloured people are not equal to whites, women are not equal to men, and LGBT people are certainly not equal to straight people. Electing Obama is certainly a step in the right direction, but the American people need to do more to show us that they can live up to the statement in the Declaration of Independence which says, "All men are created equal."

[On a happier note regarding human rights, here's news from scoop.co.nz: "South Dakota rejected ( for the second time) a proposition to ban abortion - a proposal that had been designed to trigger a subsequent challenge to Roe vs Wade in the US Supreme Court. Thanks to South Dakotans and to the three Supreme Court appointments that President Obama will make during his first term in office, the old theocratic dream of overturning Roe vs Wade is now dead."]