Overall, I’m pleased with the outcome of last week’s election: of course Obama, but also Chris Gregoire, the majority in the House and Senate, and the multitude of ballot initiatives that Washington voters managed to sort through and get right. Unfortunately, there was some collateral damage, most notably, Prop 8 in California.
Though far from the first time a state wrote discrimination into its constitution, I think the passing of Prop 8 caught a lot of people off guard, California being generally regarded as a liberal state. Having been in San Francisco the weekend before the election, I knew the race was going to be a tight one, but that doesn’t make me any less unhappy with the result. It’s very disappointing that we’re not only not ready to accept gay relationships as equal to straight ones, but that we’re willing to take such a big step backwards and write into explicit law that discrimination.
Given the general response here to the election (see this post), I’m hoping Seattle can muster a good showing at the upcoming Prop 8 protest. That’s where I’ll be tomorrow.