The US can be a frustrating place to live in for anybody who is left leaning, especially if you are non-Christian, but this recent election wasn't a complete disappointment. I'm not going to talk about the Presidential election, because we all know what happened there, and being a moderate libertarian, I wouldn't have been happy no matter if it were Romney or Obama elected, but at least with Romney's loss, the extreme right/fundamentalist movement was given a major defeat. Here's a few overlooked victories that you may not have heard of, mostly at the state level:
Marriage Equality:
Maine, Maryland and and Washington state have all approved of equal rights for gay couples!
This means that 9 states now have full equal recognition for gay couples, and 10 states, (including Illinois, where I live), have some form of "civil unions", which are not fully equal to marriage, but legal recognition none the less.
Marijuana Ballot Measures:
Colorado and Washington state passed ballot measures to legalize marijuana completely. Massachusetts voted yes on medical marijuana. It's unclear how these laws, and medical marijuana laws in other states will hold up in federal court, since this is likely to become a court case because of the federal government's complete ban on marijuana use for any purposes.
Missouri Voters Reject Todd Akin's Attempt to get a Senate Seat:
This is a race that I watched closely, not only because I live only 10 miles from the Missouri border, but because this race was of national interest. Todd Akin is the man who claimed in an interview with a St. Louis Fox TV station's news/commentary show that the female body has natural mechanisms in place to prevent pregnancy if the woman is raped, without any form of birth control.
I talked about him and other extremist Republican politicians in my post, Is This Trend Starting to Scare You Yet?. Shockingly, his wasn't the worst comment of the 2012 election, that post also talks about a politician who said that slavery wasn't all that bad for African Americans.
See? The US is starting to show some signs that's there's hope after all.
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