There's an old aphorism that there are three possible answers to any yes/no question. The people of Missouri skipped past "yes" and "no" and said HELL NO! to gay marriage when they approved by over 70% a state constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman.
This is much worse than it looks for the progressives who, ahem, shot their wad a little early. The self-proclaimed progressives and the the Democratic Party fought like, well, like hell to get this on the August primary ballot instead of the general election ballot in November -- explicitly because a greater relative percentage of Democrats would be voting in August than November due to the race between Governor Bob Holden (goodbye and good riddance) and Claire McCaskill for the Democratic gubenatorial nomination. They got their wish and forced Missouri Secretary of State Matt Blount (who, incidentally, won the Republican gubenatorial nomination) to put it on the August ballot and they still got trounced, thrashed, and terminated. Not only do all the right-wing nutjob fundamentalist Republicans in Missouri oppose gay marriage, but perhaps a majority of the Democrats of Missouri do as well. Gosh, I almost expect John Kerry to come out forcefully against gay marriage now as a result of this measurement of the prevailing political winds.
Gay marriage is not an issue that plays well outside the echo chamber of blue state Big Media salons and coffee houses. FWIW, once again, I favor civil unions for gay and lesbian couples for a lot of reasons, but I continue to oppose gay marriage for even more reasons I lack the time and space to go into here.
In other local news, Propositions K & L both lost in Kirkwood (population 33,000), so our library gets neither the additional operating funds they requested ($0.09 tax increase) nor the bond issue ($16M -- or $500 per resident) to build a new library. After also losing the school bond issue ($100M for a school district with 5,000 students -- or $20,000 per student!) last year, I hope our city leaders will get more realistic in the requests they put before the public so they can get the additional funds they need for our civil and educational infrastructures.