Prop 8 Passes

The measure that bans same-sex marriage in the state in the form of a constitutional amendment passed with 52.2 percent of the vote in favor to the 47.5 percent of votes against it (sfgate.com).

Prop. 8 supporters won a surprisingly widespread victory Tuesday, winning almost everywhere in the state but in the Bay Area and a few other counties (sfgate.com).

After losing on Tuesday, gay rights supporters filed three lawsuits Wednesday hoping that California's Supreme Court will overturn Proposition 8 (latimes.com). The suits and lawyers argue that the anti-gay-marriage measure was an illegal constitutional revision because it fundamentally altered the guarantee of equal protection (latimes.com). The first suit was filed by ACLU, the National Center for Lesbian Rights and Lambda Legal. Santa Clara County and the cities of San Francisco and Los Angeles also sued, and Los Angeles lawyer Gloria Allred filed a third suit on behalf of a married lesbian couple (latimes.com). The California Supreme Court voted 4 to 3 on May 15 that a state ban on same-sex marriage was unconstitutional. They also elevated sexual orientation to the constitutional status of race and gender (latimes.com).

Proposition 8 still leads by one half million votes and experts have stated that they do not expect the 3 million uncounted mail and provisional ballots to change the outcome (sfgate.com). "The result shows that this wasn't a partisan issue for people," said Frank Schubert, who ran the Prop. 8 campaign. "People have a strong attachment to traditional marriage, and that's the way they voted" (sfgate.com). Exit polls show that 59 percent of Catholics supported Barack Obama but also voted for Proposition 8 by 64 percent to 36 percent (sfgate.com). The exit poll also showed that 84 percent of people who attend church weekly voted for Proposition 8.

For more information:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/06/BA1313VJQH.DTL

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/california/la-me-gaylegal6-2008nov06,0,5471913.story

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/11/05/MNH413UTUS.DTL