All right, just so I have some sort of documented reaction to what happened last night, here it goes…
Locally, Arizona has proven to be a hateful state, by passing Proposition 102. In the Arizona state constitution, marriage is already defined as a union between one man and one woman. The extremist conservatives had the need to put an amendment in to reaffirm that statement, and convinced a lot of people to ’say yes to marriage’. In doing so, they have further oppressed and discriminated against a group of people - I thought we were past doing that sort of thing, but I guess I was wrong. This decision will make it harder down the road, when we realize our mistake and we separate marriage as a religious institution from marriage as a legally recognized union of two people. It will happen someday, and we will look back on this day and shake our heads - much in the same way that we now shake our heads at segregation. I hear California had a similar proposition pass. We clearly still have some growing up to do.
I am disappointed that John McCain did not get elected. I didn’t expect him to win, though. He had been equated to George Bush time and again, and people are clearly tired of our current president. The Democrats did a good job marketing; I’ll give them that.
The reason I am disappointed is that I have a disdain for partisan politics and those who are on the extremes of the political spectrum - both to the left and the right. I long for the day that we can again have a president in the White House who can’t say that he’s clearly liberal or clearly conservative. McCain came as close to walking that line as any major political leader in recent history, and he missed his shot.
Our country, though, will do just fine in the coming years. I have established the hope in myself that Obama has more self control than Bush, in that he will be able to do a better job of keeping his agenda in check for the good of the country. Only time will tell if that holds true, but I know that Obama is an intelligent man with a love for our country. In addition, I am convinced that he will be able to win the world over with his charisma - something that I will admit that McCain would not have been able to do. And lastly, the economy - the issue that everyone has been concerned about - will improve in the next year. I will maintain that it would happen regardless of who won yesterday’s election.. for the record. 
We are a strong country and we will persevere regardless of who is in power. I’m proud to be an American, and this is not the first time in a long time I have said it.
Russ
I was stunned that 102 passed, although I’ll hand it to the proponents for coming up with a VERY slick ad campaign, and opponents were probably a little lazy, thinking everyone voted this down once, so surely they’ll do it again. That doesn’t make me any less pissed off about it, but like you said, we have some growing up to do…
As for the presidential race, I like The Onion’s perspective: http://www.theonion.com/content/news_briefs/black_man_given_nations
