Opponents of marriage equality scored victories in Arizona and Florida on Election Day, where anti-gay marriage ballot measures were passed. Those measures will place bans on gay marriage in the Arizona and Florida constitutions. The states join a raft of others that have adopted similar anti-gay marriage measures. Only three states recognize equal marriage rights for gays, Connecticut, Massachusetts and, until early this morning, California.

The New York Times and Andrew Sullivan’s The Daily Dish have reported that the California ballot initiative, Proposition 8, has been approved by voters. The passage of Proposition 8 strips gay couples in California of full marriage rights. The ballot measure was introduced quickly after the California Supreme Court ruled in May that gays have a state constitutional right to marry. Promotion of the measure was funded largely by the Mormon church and socially conservative lobbying groups, such as James Dobson’s Focus on the Family. Sullivan called the approval of Proposition 8 “heart-breaking” and “a brutal rebuke to the state supreme court, and enshrinement in California’s constitution that gay couples are now second-class citizens and second class human beings. Massively funded by the Mormon church, a religious majority finally managed to put gay people in the back of the bus in the biggest state of the union.”

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