Tuesday's election was historic ... because it showed that our nation has crossed a threshold in accepting LGBTQ people as equals.... Consider the results:
- Voters approved of same-sex marriage in Maryland, Washington, and Maine. Maine had rejected it just a few years ago.
- Minnesota voters said no to a measure that would have amended its state constitution to define "marriage" as heterosexual unions between a man and a woman. Voters in 30 states had approved such measures in previous elections, making it possible for conservative activists to claim that every time such a measure had been sent directly to the American people, the American people had voted down gay marriage. That's not the case any more.
- In neighboring Wisconsin, a lesbian, Tammy Baldwin, became the nation's first openly gay Senator. Moreover, as one commentator put it, "her sexual orientation was largely a non-issue in the race."
- In Iowa, voters did not unseat a judge who had been part of the seven-member state Supreme Court that had unanimously upheld same-sex marriage in 2007. According to the New York Times, two other judges who had found in favor of gay marriage had been kicked off the bench by angry Iowa conservatives in 2010. This year's election was a different story.
- Voters re-elected for president a man who announced earlier this year that he had changed his mind about same-sex marriage, and that he now supports full marriage equality.
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