It’s official: Proposition 8 has passed and same-sex marriage is no longer legal in California. I just don’t understand, as I wrote to a friend, how a state that supported Barack Obama by such a massive margin also could vote to discriminate against gay and lesbian couples. It is astonishing and horribly sad.
Author: hankkalet
Hank Kalet is a poet and freelance journalist. He is the economic needs reporter for NJ Spotlight, teaches journalism at Rutgers University and writing at Middlesex County College and Brookdale Community College. He writes a semi-monthly column for the Progressive Populist. He is a lifelong fan of the New York Mets and New York Knicks, drinks too much coffee and attends as many Bruce Springsteen concerts as his meager finances will allow. He lives in South Brunswick with his wife Annie.
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Hank Kalet 
Sadly, and though at this moment it is just my opinion which is not based on a careful study of the voter demographics (so I may be way wrong), but African-American voters tend to be socially conservative on the topic of gay marriage. So you could easily have an overwhelming majority for Obama but an underwhelming lack of one for Prop. 8. Yeah, my joy at his election has been severely tempered today by the results in Florida, Arizona and most tellingly, California. I was born in 1957. I\’ve now seen an African-American elected President of the United States. Will I see a same sex couple civilly married and recognized by the Federal government in my lifetime? That, I fear, depends on how long I live.