Our New Stonewall?

Some Quotes:

Via Fox News:

Ellen DeGeneres says she is "saddened beyond belief" a ban on gay marriage has been approved by Californian voters. DeGeneres married Australian actress Portia de Rossi in August, three months after the Californian Supreme Court legalised same-sex marriage. Yesterday's vote for Proposition 8, a constitutional amendment to outlaw gay marriage, leaves the stars and thousands of other gay couples in legal limbo. "Barack Obama is our new president. Change is here. I like millions of of Americans, felt like we had taken a giant step toward equality," the talk-show host said on her website. "This morning, when it was clear that Proposition 8 had passed in California, I can’t explain the feeling I had. I was saddened beyond belief. "Here we just had a giant step toward equality and then on the very next day, we took a giant step away."

Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement regarding the passage of California Proposition 8:

“I am deeply disappointed by the passage of Proposition 8. This ballot measure takes away individual rights and freedoms, and is rooted in the politics of division.
“The passage of this measure diminishes the California Constitution. We must continue to fight for equal treatment of all of California’s citizens and families. I strongly support the legal challenges underway to halt this dangerous revision of our State Constitution.”

From Lee Tucker, a blogger and friend to Joe. My. God.:

"To the kind souls who decided that I’m not equal, and voted to strip me, and others in my community of their constitutional rights, congratulations. Your bigotry and fear have won this day. In 40 years, when viewed through the prism of history, you’ll find yourselves as respected and loved as the racists and segregationists of the 1960s. In 40 years, when the first gay or lesbian wins the highest office in the land, you’ll be sharing the same lonely corner as those folks who yesterday couldn’t “vote for a n*gger,” and woke up to discover that an African American was president, and that history had passed them by.

"Until that day, I fear for the lives of your gay sons and lesbian daughters. The ones who can’t talk to you about it, and suffer silently. They’ll be dying for your choice, because teen suicide rates in gays and lesbians is driven by fear, and by feelings of worthlessness that proposition 8 reinforces. No doubt the ones who finally do come out, will suffer the indignity of either the scam of “reparative therapy” or homelessness, as so many do. Until that day, I fear for the children of gays and lesbians, who will face ridicule and discrimination at school because their families “aren’t real” and their mommies or daddies “aren’t really married.”

"Finally, I fear for you. If the God you worship is the one about whom I’ve read, you’ve got some serious explaining to do. Like the woman in John 8, I’d offer you the first stone, but I’m already bloodied by Proposition 8."

Matt Coles, Director of the ACLU Lesbian Gay Bisexual Transgender Project:

Even in famously liberal San Francisco, we had to go through the process of trying to pass a simple domestic partnership law five times, and we lost twice. If you run up an unbroken string of victories in any battle for civil rights, that simply means you waited too long to get to work. Change that matters is never smooth or easy.

It will be important to go over the campaign carefully and learn from our mistakes. But we need to resist the temptation to blame ourselves for the loss. The perfect campaign hasn’t been run anywhere yet. Thousands of very good people worked their hearts out on this, and they deserve our thanks. The victims of an injustice should never be blamed for failing to end it unless they don’t try. And you can’t say that we didn’t try, and try damn hard.

We didn’t lose by much. Eight years ago, on virtually the same question, we could only get 39 percent. On Tuesday, we got over 48. While our opponents may be celebrating now, the handwriting is on the wall. They won’t be able to hold on much longer. There are other states where we’ll be able to get marriage in the next few years, and others where we’ll get domestic partnerships and civil unions.

We’ll be back in California. And we’ll win. You can depend on it.

There is more, much more and I will continue to post more quotes and pictures as I find them. If the right-wing, knuckle-dragging, bible-thumping, homophobic bigots think they have won, they have another "think" coming. This fight is just beginning. We will not stop. We will not rest. We will not give up until we have the equality that we deserve as American citizens!