The Morning After

Wednesday morning after a major election is the only time I head straight for the computer rather than the newspaper. I haven't found much additional good news from when I went to bed around 2:00 this morning. I can't really mask my dismay that the senate makeup is still undecided at this point, but... there's still hope. Dems have very thin leads in Montana and Virginia. We desperately need to secure both.

Democrats took 20 of 36 governors races to give themselves a majority of top state jobs — 28 — for the first time in a dozen years. New York, Ohio, Massachusetts, Colorado, Maryland and Arkansas went into the Democratic column.

"We took a whuppin' last night and we understand that," said Tom DeLay, the former GOP House majority leader, whose old Texas seat switched to Democrats, too. DeLay, who resigned from the House after being charged in connection with a campaign finance scheme, said many conservatives chose not to vote.

"The Democrats didn't win," he said, "Republicans lost."

That was one of the few rays of light emitted from the Texas elections, and only because DeLay's replacement was a write-in candidate.

One bright spot for gays was in Arizona which became the first state to defeat an amendment banning gay marriage. However, referendums in the other states didn't fare so well, with particularly disappointing results in Wisconsin. Honestly, it's sickening.

Voters in Virginia, Wisconsin, South Carolina, South Dakota, Idaho, Tennessee and Colorado, however approved amending their constitutions to ban same-sex marriage.

Nevertheless, record numbers of gay candidates were elected to office around the nation, which unfortunately says more about the blue dot areas in which they ran rather than statewide approval in most of them.

Among the winners was Patricia Todd, who will represent District 54 in the Alabama State House. Todd is the first openly gay person ever elected to any office in the state.

Kathy Webb will represent District 37 in the Arkansas State House. She is the first openly gay person ever elected to any office in the state.

Al McAffrey, who will represent District 88 in the Oklahoma State House, is the first openly gay person ever elected to the Oklahoma state legislature.

Unrelated to the elections was this story which appeared a day or so before the election but was lost in the shuffle.

New York City is considering a proposal that would allow trans people to have their birth certificate reflect their true sexuality regardless of whether they have had reassignment surgery according to a published report.

It's an important step for transgender rights.