With about 32% of the vote in 8 is leading 53-47, and with 30%
of the vote in 4 is losing 52-48.  So there's at least 5% that are voting no on 4 and yes on 8.  4 would have to lose by 10% for 8 to have a chance.

My thoughts:

1.  The country is still a long ways off from accepting gay marriage.  Even in California.  

2.  I think the Yes on 8 campaign had the much better ground game.  The final couple of days, I saw almost all Yes on 8 signholders on major intersections.

3.  Some mistakes were made by the No side.  They allowed themselves to get a late start in fund-raising and advertising.
Also, near the end, there was a bit of Mormon bashing which didn't help.

There's more...

... in case you weren't aware.

Some generations back in my family, a young boy got his leg cut off in an accident on a set of train tracks. The settlement was in excess of $100,000, a fortune at the time and nothing to sneeze at even today. His father, a minister who was so stingy that he wouldn't even let his wife have a copy of the key to the family refrigerator, gifted the entire settlement to a Bible college and insisted that he continue wearing the short pants that fashion norms of the day prescribed for boys Paul's age.

Paul got teased about his exposed prosthetic mercilessly at school and got into a lot of fights. Not even this bullying made his father relent. Paul later became a prize fighter, but his career never took off. Family legend has it that he was so cussed and nasty that he knocked his opponents out too quickly, which didn't give the audience a good show for their money. He became an abusive drunk and liked to win bets off of unsuspecting people in bars by crushing full aluminum beer cans with one hand. I guess his life made him 'strong,' a trait he used to tyrannize his own eventual family.

I could go on, too. That's the good thing about families with several generations of dysfunction, they give you a lot to write about. I'm not talking a lovable sort of sitcom dysfunction, either, where everyone's just mildly, humorously neurotic. No.

The point of that story, and I have more where that came from, is to say that some people's families are so unbelievably frakked up that if you didn't come from one of them, you might not believe that people like that existed. But they do. How could someone be so nasty to their own kid? I don't know, it just happened.

Families are supposed to be, are idealized as, everyone's bulwark of love and support against an uncaring world. Though for some, the uncaring world is a relief compared to dealing with the controlling, malicious, life-wrecking, or vindictive jerks that an accident of birth allotted to you as parents, in-laws, children, aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents. Sometimes those people are just messed up. Or maybe basically decent, but you all just bring out the absolute worst in each other. Or even kind, but weak, and unable to protect you from predators or from their own bad habits.

Not everyone has a family who loves them unconditionally and will always be there if they need help. Got it? You know those people you read about in the news and think, 'Damn, what an unbelievable creep,' those people are part of someone's family and are probably traumatizing that family even as you sit there reading about them being unbelievable creeps.

That's why parental notification laws for abortion, like California's Proposition 8, are so pernicious.

Because there are families where fathers rape their own daughters. Because there are families where a pregnant girl might get thrown out on the street, or beaten to within an inch of her life. Because there are families where both parents are hooked on drugs or alcohol and need their children to parent them from an early age. Because there are families where several generations of abusive relationships have poisoned communication channels and deprived both parents and children of positive role models. Because there are teenagers who would literally rather risk death than tell anyone that they might be pregnant until it's too late, whether because they're suffering from depression or feel that they've transgressed too far against professed family morals, a situation made even worse if their parents are also troubled and would react badly to such an announcement.

Any policy that relies on all families being perfect in order to be humane simply fails to be humane. Or realistic, for that matter.

Is it enough to be against a policy because it will cause more suffering? I think it is. We're not talking about hypothetical platitudes where people exist in states of perfect information and minimal consequence, we're talking about real lives. Is it enough to simply ask that people vote against Proposition 4 because they're anti-misery?

There's more...

Cross-posted at DailyKos

Proposition 4 on California's general election ballot is an initiative measure to amend the California State Constitution to impede a minor's ability to obtain an abortion, even in the case of rape or incest.  If you think this is familiar, you are right.  Twice in the past three years, Californians have narrowly defeated two similar measures -- Propositions 73 in November, 2005 and 85 in November, 2006.  But this time, the measure is in danger of passing.  A poll (caution: .pdf file) conducted by the well-respected Field Research Corporation has it at Yes 49, No 41, with 10 percent undecided as of September 26th.  All of this in a state that is 71% pro-choice.  

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Why are we all in shock that a woman whose current residence is the Governor's mansion in Juneau would be chosen as the GOP vice presidential nominee?  Perhaps it is because she is so cold to our view of democracy and women's rights that her ideals could have a terrifying effect here in California. She is the poster mom for the film Juno whose storybook tale of a teenage pregnancy has become incarnate in Bristol Palin.  While her story is certainly played out in thousands of households across America, we all know the sugar-coated tale that winds from Hollywood to Alaska isn't the norm for teenagers facing this monumental issue.

Teenage pregnancy is an issue that we Californians will be facing once again on our November ballot. Like a bad movie sequel, it's a three time re-run for us in California.  Proposition 4 will force voters to assess the idea of promoting parental notification for underage abortions.  Twice before voters have rallied against this because they know it doesn't really work.  Yet again we have to fight the fight for reproductive choice.

But never before has this ballot proposition had a limelight example like we do today.

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