Rod Dreher on the failure of Prop 8:
by appealing to the courts to impose something as radical as same-sex marriage, something that has never in the history of human society existed, they invited this backlash. Now, traditional marriage has been constitutionalized, and same-sex couples are worse off than before, because they only way they can get marriage now is by amending the state constitution. It was a foolish strategy, and if the US Supreme Court should in the next decade or so discover a same-sex marriage right in the US Constitution, there will swiftly arise a movement to pass a constitutional amendment defining marriage as one man and one woman. Yes, the Federal Marriage Amendment failed in the Senate in 2005, but I think that's because the idea of court-imposed gay marriage was an abstract threat. In California, it was a reality, and that appears to have galvanized voters.
Dreher continues: 4. I expect that the anger among the gay community and their supporters over this result will make rational discussion of the matter impossible, at least for a time. But what I would like to see is an honest reckoning over why Prop 8 won, something that goes beyond, "They hate us! They hate us!" If you blame it all on bigotry, that doesn't require you to think about other reasons why people voted for Prop 8 -- like, for example, resentment over something as radical as same-sex marriage being imposed by a judicial elite.