Wednesday, November 07, 2012

Marriage equality wins in all four ballot initiatives, NOM fails to defeat Iowa judge

Brian Brown, president of NOM, has a lot to cry about after last night.

To add to the happiness over Obama's re-election and Tammy Baldwin's election to the Senate comes another bit of good news sure to make the lgbt community shout from the rooftops.

We won ALL FOUR marriage equality initiatives in Maine, Maryland, Washington State, and Minnesota. Maine, Maryland, and Washington State all voted to approve marriage equality. And Minnesota became the first state to defeat an anti-marriage equality initiative.

All victories are sweet but three of those victories should be considered extra sweet by the lgbt community. In 2009, voters initially passed a referendum in Maine defeating the state's pro-marriage equality law. Last night, Maine became the first state to approve marriage equality through a popular vote.

Maryland was also a hard fought battle. In 2010, a marriage equality law just missed being passed by the state legislature after a coalition of religious leader and African-Americans legislators voiced a huge disapproval of it. When it was passed last year, it was almost immediately put up to vote via referendum.

Washington State was one that gay equality advocates really expected to win and as the votes slowly came in, marriage equality always led the count.

Minnesota was one many gay equality advocates expected to lose. Leaders of the Catholic Church fought tooth and nail to pass an anti-marriage equality law, including Archbishop John Nienstedt, who led the charge for the initiative by blurring the lines between politics and the church even in the face of much criticism.

At press time, the National Organization for Marriage has yet to comment on these losses, which is not surprising. The organization was involved in each initiative and has to be shocked at losing them all.

To make matters worse for the organization, NOM also lost a sparsely watched but crucial battle in Iowa to defeat a judge who voted for marriage equality in that state. Judge David S. Wiggins handily won another term  in spite of a huge campaign by NOM and other religious right figures to have him dismissed. His victory comes two years after NOM led a successful effort to defeat three other Iowa judges who ruled for marriage equality.

To many in the lgbt community, last night brought a sense of completeness that they should have had in 2008. That election night, President Obama became the first black president, but we lost the Proposition 8 vote in CA. Last night, brought a huge change from four years ago.

And it felt so right.

 

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8 comments:

Aurora said...

uh.... Minnesota is listed as having voted NO...

David said...

Last night was one of the greatest days in the history of LGBT civil rights. The cherry on top will be if we can a couple liberal Supreme Court justices in place over the next four years.

BlackTsunami said...

Hi Aurora. No as in NO to adding an amendment to the state constitution outlawing marriage equality.

Anonymous said...

@Aurora they voted against putting a ban on same sex marriage into their state constitution. I was proud and happy 4 years ago. Today I am overjoyed and hopeful for the future of our country and my future with my partner.

Maleveax said...

Aurora, The question in Minnesota was should we ban Same Sex Marriage. The answer is NO! That is a win for Minnesota and the LGBT community :D

DN said...

Hey one minor correction - Minnesota is actually the second state to vote no on a constitutional amendment to ban marriage equality. Arizona voted no in 2006 (but they did vote yes in 2008).

Christopher Robinson said...

Heckuva night, huh! And is that guy REALLY crying? Bwahahaha! His tears would make the sweetest wine! I'll say what I said on FB last night: What? What's that you say? Up in Wisconsin, Tammy Baldwin just became the first openly-gay senator in American history?! Even as the Democrats took the White House while running on a platform that included marriage equality? Ho-lee crap! Congratulations, Senator! Try not to let the gust of wind created by right-wingers insisting that this all means we live in a post-gaycial society blow you down the street like a tumbleweed!

frozenprince said...

How much you wanna bet NOM becomes full, announced hypocritical and fights this tooth and nail?

Using, ironically enough, the judicial system.