.Due to popular vote initiatives/propositions, Maine and Maryland now will accept gay marriages as declared by certifiication. No state ever has previously approved gay marriage via amendment/proposition due to popular vote. AKA: More people thought gays should be able to marry than didn't. No "activist judges" or "liberal legislature". The people hath spoken.
Washington also joins these, though the link I submit hasn't declared it, since I chose the purportedly reputable CNN rather than a link that could be dismissed by insane conseravative posters...or I don't remember right....
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/07/politics/pol-same-sex-marriage/index.html
Also congratulations weed-smokers. Washington and Colorado approved, also by popular initiative, not only medicinal marijuana, but rather recreational marijuana for legal use.
http://money.cnn.com/2012/11/07/news/economy/marijuana-legalization-washington-colorado/
If progressives refuse to get behind a non-progressive like Obama, or etc., at least they/we can be a bit encouraged by these results. Of course, Obama might quash both. He's severely harried California medicinal marijuana growers and distributors despite promising he wouldn't. And while he did a great job on Don't-Ask-Don't-Tell, will he also relegate Defense of Marriage Act to the dustbin? Whereas gays who marry in Maine/Maryland transfer their marriage to other states?
Anyway, it's wonderful to see large amounts of common citizens opening up to these issues. Ten years ago the ballots were full of marriage-only-man-woman propositions. Today those have been upended by the two ballots above, plus the defeat of an attempt of that old-school iniiative in uh, a state I can't remember.
Of course not all laws should be decided by referendum. But when the laws are either 1) A civil rights issue ala gay marriage; or 2) A civil rights issue ala imbibing what you will into your body; then the referendum is mirroring the Constitution. (ala 1st, 9th, 10th Amendments).
Let's hope the Federal Government lets this go on.