At the same time as voters went to the polls in America to vote for a new President, they were asked to vote on a number of "propositions" at state level. If I have understood this aright, these "propositions" amount to being amendments to the constitutions of the state concerned; they effectively allow the residents of the state a referendum that will decide whether or not the proposition will be incorporated into the constitution of the state.
ZENIT are today reporting on the outcomes of a number of these "proposition" votes in different states. The headline vote comes from California, where a vote to include a traditional definition of marriage - between one man and one woman - was successful. The ZENIT report is headlined "California celebrates marriage definition vote: Arizona and Florida join in banning gay marriage".
The vote in California is significant in two ways. One is that it overturns by an electoral process an earlier court decision that allowed gay marriage. The phenomenon of court decisions effectively making law rather than implementing it is not unique to this issue, or to the United States. The second is the number of gay marriages that had taken place in California since the court decision effectively legalised gay marriage - some 18 000 according to the ZENIT report.
Catholic Analysis, on his political blog, offers some "post election" comment. He points out that the Democrat domination of Congress isn't quite as complete as one might think - it looks as if a filibuster is still possible. He also points out that if Barack Obama appoints to the Federal Supreme Court as one might expect, then judgements of that court could well overturn the state votes in favour of marriage. California, for example, voted for Barack Obama as President but also voted against gay marriage. Catholic Analysis highlights this as a political contradiction that will quite possibly become apparent in the future.
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