Not everything is going well on the political scene in the United States, three states, Florida, Arizona and California banned gay marriage, this brings the total number of states to 40, although some still allow civil partnerships.
From the NYT:
"It was a great victory," said the Rev. James Garlow, senior pastor of Skyline Church in San Diego County and a leader of the campaign to pass the California measure, Proposition 8. “We saw the people just rise up."
Unfortunately issues like this just don't seem to want to die in the United States, both this and abortion (although I'd like to believe the worst of that is past us) seems to be caught in an endless cycle, the fundies just never giving up and then striking while everyone else is distracted. This move also leaves in doubt the legal status of thousands who took advantage of the ruling by the Californian state court which declared same sex marriages to be legal earlier in the year. In Arizona a similar ban was defeated a couple of years back.
Hopefully with all the people who voted for the first time this week the power of the Christian fundamentalists can start to be worn down over the coming years, not only in the United States, but also here where they represent an increasingly dangerous threat to modern progressive values and education.