Oh, and about Prop 8

If Facebook Status messages are an accurate barometer for the mood of the nation's youth more than 24 hours after the election (better than YouTube comments), then the mood among twentysomething liberals on this side of the United States (the ones on my Friends list, anyway) is a mixture of pride and anger: proud of America, pissed at California. How could a state help elect the first black Muslim socialist terrorist president while simultaneously denying gays the right of marriage?

Y'know what, though? The only thing that surprises me regarding the Prop. 8 results is that people are surprised it passed.

Look, the presidency of Barack Obama is going to change a lot of things about this country on a cultural level. One thing it won't change, however, is how America feels about homosexuality. When every major presidential candidate opposes redefining marriage as between something other than one man and one woman, that should give you an idea of where we are collectively on this issue. We have reached a certain level of tolerance -- most Americans today appreciate gay-themed television shows and movies, have gay associates, and hell, even support the notion of civil unions -- but have not crossed that crucial plateau of all civil rights movements, the one that separates mere tolerance from actual acceptance. Even as they shake hands with an openly gay friend, too many straight people still need the comfort of knowing that person is "the Other." And one of the last things heterosexuals have to give them that comfort is disallowing the redefinition of the word "marriage."

How, then, do we get over that bridge? Not sure. I do know we have placed a supposedly transformational figure in the White House, a figure who at this moment holds a lot of influence over the attitudes of the nation -- especially African Americans, 70 percent of whom in California supported Prop 8. Several articles have pointed out that number, and while I find it somewhat divisive to blame the increased amount of blacks and Latinos who voted for the passage of the proposition, it should be addressed by the gay community, as Andrew Sullivan has said, and Obama is the man in a position to make a signiciant difference regarding that demographic specifically. He has repeatedly voiced his opposition to any sort of national gay marriage amendment, saying it should be left up to the states and individual denominations, but has also pledged federal recognition of state-sanctioned civil unions. Believe it when you see it (which probably won't be until after 2012, if it happens). It is a start, though.

Of course, I'm sure the gay community is tired of being stuck in such a disheartening stasis. For every Massachusetts and Connecticut, there's a California, Arizona, Florida and 27 other states with same-sex marriage bans. It's tough. And I say that with no little empathy. Gay rights has been a huge issue with me since teenagehood. It was the first politically divisive subject I took a definitive stance on -- most likely because my aunt, who had known a lot of gay people acting in New York during the '80s (many of whom succumbed to AIDS), ground a forceful brand of tolerance into the heads of her nieces and nephews from a young age -- and remains the one position where there is zero grey area for me. The first article I ever had published (using that term loosely) was a debate in the Oxnard High School paper with my hyper-Christian (but otherwise hip -- again, loosely speaking) math teacher the last time California went through this. Prop 22 passed by a much large margin in 2000 than Prop 8 did two days ago. So the wall is chipping. But you can't submit to the shock, because historically speaking, it's not particularly shocking. You just have to keep hammering the wall.

And look on the bright side, California: At least you get the Super Train!