Yes We Can!!! Mostly.

An historic night last night, as Barack Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States. Obama scored the largest electoral college win since 1996, winning at least 349 electoral votes to John McCain's 147, with Missouri and North Carolina still outstanding.

It wasn't the complete domination I'd hoped for. Montana, Georgia, and Arizona went for McCain, and Republicans held on to endangered Senate seats in Georgia, Kentucky, and possibly Alaska (still too close to call). But what are Alaska Republicans thinking? I guess if you can elect a wack-job like Sarah Palin governor, you don't mind a convicted felon like Ted Stevens as your senator.

Civil rights in the form of marriage equality took a big hit last night, too. Anti-same sex marriage initatives were approved in Arizona, Florida, and California. (Absentee ballots remain to be counted in California, but it doesn't look good.)

Despite the fact that Florida is my former home state and I have a lot of friends there, the result in California is particularly disappointing for me. For a few reasons:

(1) California is generally a relatively liberal state; certainly the win for Obama in CA was never in doubt. In some ways, I feel like, if the voters in CALIFORNIA won't support marriage equality, who will???

(2) Unlike in Florida and Arizona, the vote on Prop 8 in California REMOVES a pre-existing right. Same-sex couples have had the right to marry in California since earlier this year. Now, that right has (presumably) been cruelly stripped away. What happens to the same-sex marriages that were already legal? Do they instantly become void?

Or, if pre-existing same-sex marriages remain, doesn't that create two classes of people in California? Those who got married before November 4, and those who didn't? That's blatantly unconstitutional.

(3) The anti-gay "Yes on Prop 8" campaign was mostly funded (possibly as much as 75%) by the Mormon Church. Their ads were misleading and tried to convince voters that churchs and synagogues would be forced to perform gay marriage if Prop 8 failed. "Religious freedom" could be at stake, they said.

Bullshit. If you don't like gay people, and consider them second-class citizens, just say so. Although I'd vehemently disagree with that stance, at least it would be an honest one. But the very well-funded "Yes on 8" forces were able to use lies and misdirection to confuse just enough of the electorate for a narrow win.

Sadly, even some Orthodox Jewish groups got into the act, aligning with the Mormons and evangelical Christian groups. I'm ashamed to be a member of the same religion as the people who would send out (and many of those who comment on) articles like this homophobic piece of shit.

(4) Finally, I can't decide what Barack Obama's role should have been in the fight against Proposition 8. When asked on an MTV interview about it, he sort of hedged his bets:

"I believe marriage is between a man and a woman. I am not in favor of gay marriage. But when you start playing around with constitutions, just to prohibit somebody who cares about another person, it just seems to me that's not what America's about. Usually, our constitutions expand liberties, they don't contract them."

In one way, disappointing to hear him say "I am not in favor of gay marriage." Yet, on the other hand, he got it right in saying that our constitutions usually expand liberties, not curtail them.

I don't know. His candidacy brought lots of African-Americans to the polls in California (and across the nation). Gay rights is a difficult issue for the A-A community, especially for the evangelical A-A population. Exit polls suggest that nearly 70% of black voters voted for Proposition 8, against marriage equality.

With such a close vote overall, I can't help but wonder if Obama could have made a difference. In the last couple of days, couldn't he have recorded a commercial or robocall for the No on 8 campaign? Stating that constitutionally-mandated discrimination is something that no one -- particularly African-Americans -- should support?

Sure, a pro-gay marriage stance -- even a quiet one -- might have hurt his votes in some rural areas. It wouldn't have put his win in California in jeopardy, obviously. But maybe, if the McCain camp moved quickly to make an issue of it, it could have caused Obama to lose some of the close states he won last night? Maybe Virginia, maybe Indiana?

What if he'd turned even 10% of the A-A population from "Yes" to "No" votes on Proposition 8?

We'll never know, of course. And there remain legal and legislative options for marriage equality across the nation. This fight is not over, and I firmly believe that one day, our daughter Sophie will look back on this fight the way we look back at the bans on interracial marriage. It's nearly inconceivable to me that America once told blacks and whites they couldn't marry each other.

When Sophie is my age, I think she'll feel the same incredulity about the fact that two men or two women couldn't get married.

In any case, a great night for America last night. But it could have been even greater.