Evidence of a tipping point

Some gay-specific highlights (and other items that interest me) from yesterday's election outcome.

First, a bit of history: Jim Burroway wrote that back in 1961 Jose Sarria, drag queen, ran for San Francisco Board of Supervisors. He came in 9th out of 34 candidates. Alas, only five joined the board. He was the first out gay candidate to run for office and the 6,000 votes he got meant other San Francisco politicians recognized the need to court the gay vote.

And the big news: Marriage equality was up for a vote in four states and we won all four!

Maine approved marriage equality by 53%.

Maryland approved it by 52%.

Washington approved it by almost 52% (though vote counting is slower there, so this isn't official).

Minnesota defeated a marriage protection amendment by 51% (with another 1% not voting, which counts as a no). Both parts of the state legislature flipped back to Dem so another attempt won't be made. Alas, state law still prevents marriage equality.

After 31 losses this feels great! We've taken away a big talking point -- "Whenever gay marriage comes up for a vote, it loses." Not anymore! By the end of January 9 states will have marriage equality.

Timothy Kincaid of Box Turtle Bulletin reminds us that the three states that added marriage equality already had some type of recognition of gay couples, such as domestic partnerships. There are 10 such states left. And 31 that offer no recognition of our love (and many of those have constitutional bans). Kincaid thinks the 10 states with some recognition will fairly quickly upgrade to marriage. Then domestic partnerships won't be seen as a viable alternative so the battle will be all or nothing. Or action will come through the courts.

Gay candidates did well:

Tammy Baldwin, lesbian, is the first openly gay US Senator (also the first woman senator from Wisconsin). I hear there is a healthy crop of female freshmen senators.

Her vacant house seat was won by Mark Pocan, who is gay. Yup, passed from one gay to another.

Jared Polis, gay, is returning to the House from Colorado.

David Cicilline, gay, is returning from Rhode Island.

Mark Takano, gay, is new to the House from California.

Sean Patrick Maloney, gay, joins the House from New York.

Richard Tisei, gay Republican, was defeated for a House seat. Voters preferred a gay friendly Democrat.

Kyrsten Sinema, bisexual from Arizona, is ahead, but the race is too close to call.

And other important races:

Elizabeth Warren booted Scott Brown out of Ted Kennedy's Senate seat.

Claire McCaskill defeated "legitimate rape" Todd Akin in Missouri to keep her Senate seat.

I think it was 4 years ago, marriage equality came to Iowa through the state Supremes. Two years ago three of the justices who handed down that decision were up for retention votes and targeted by the anti-gay forces. All three were defeated. A fourth was up for retention this year. Again, the battle was fierce, but David Wiggins kept his seat on the Iowa Supremes. Dems kept their hold on the state Senate, so the GOP can't attempt a marriage protection amendment.

The anti-gay mayor of Troy, Mich. who was elected only a year ago, lost a recall vote.

We are very aware that our opponents are not going to slink quietly away. One claims that forty years from now, just like with the abortion issue, the anti-gay crowd will be stronger than ever. That was met with derision. You're gonna license gay wedding venues so that there can be only two in many states? Good luck with that.

With those three new marriage equality I believe we are seeing evidence of a tipping point. That is an incident in time after which change becomes much more rapid. I don't think yesterday's results are the tipping point, only evidence that it has happened in the recent past.

I feel a lot less grumpy today -- I actually feel pretty good about the election results.