As an early supporter and campaign volunteer I was ecstatic with Barack Obama's landslide win one week ago today. I was especially please to see my home state of Indiana turn blue for the first time in my life.

The night was not without disappointments. Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels won re-election easily. He remains Not My Man. Maybe I'll have to run next time to get that fucker out.

Most disappointing to me was the victory of Proposition 8 in California. Dubbed Prop H8 by just about everyone (and here I thought I was being clever), the ballot initiative amended the California State Constitution to ban same sex marriage.

One of my closest friends lives in California. He's gay. He's in a committed relationship. And now he can't choose to marry his partner.

How would you feel if the state decided that you couldn't marry the person you love because you both have blonde hair? Too far removed from reality for you? How about if the state forbid your marriage because your parter was of Asian descent? Ah, now that hits a little closer to home, doesn't it? As late as 1967 there were U.S. laws that made inter-racial marriage illegal. We'll look back on this law with the same sense of shame.

As Fosco points out, what kind of a fucked up system of government allows a simple majority vote to amend its constitution?

It is simply not acceptable for the majority to vote on whether to recognize the rights of a minority. As much as people like to claim we live in a democracy this is incorrect. We live in a constitutional republic just so we can avoid this sort of problem.

No one has ever been able to explain to me (without invoking religion, which has no place in governmental policy) what the objection to same sex marriage is. I really, really want to know. Not compelling: You don't like to think about what they do & you don't want to explain things to your kids. To prove that I really want to hear from proponents of the ban: I'll give anyone who can present a cogent argument for the ban a cookie. Remember now, no invoking religion.

Personally, I believe the biggest opponents to same sex marriage are deeply, deeply in denial about themselves.

I've been advocating the same solution for over four years: The government gets completely out of the marriage business. No one gets married. As far as the government is concerned everything is a civil union. Churches could choose to perform marriage ceremonies. Or not.

Also, for my friends in California: I think you should get behind a new amendment to your fine constitution that bans divorce. I mean, if so many people in your state want to "protect" marriage they should all be able to support making the dissolution of those unions illegal, right?