Despite a last minute push by the Connecticut Catholic Conference which paid for last minute television advertising, Connecticut voters on November 4th rejected a constitutional convention that could take away the right of marriage equality from all its citizens. And those same-sex marriages begin today.

Below is the ad funded by the Connecticut Catholic Conference.

From the Hartford Courant:

“The Church has been like the cavalry coming over the hill with guns blazing,” said Peter Wolfgang, executive director of the Family Institute of Connecticut, which supported the convention. “The other side was outspending us 83 to 1. The only thing that leveled it out is the Catholic Church.”

And to be fair, here is the ad run by those opposing a constitutional convention.

One observation: At least they had the courage to mention “gay marriage” in their advertising, unlike California.

So while Question 1 failed, it’s still a sad reminder of how pervasive this movement really is, as Mormons, Catholics and other faith-based groups pressure states to adopt discrimination into their constitutions, banning same-sex marriage. We just lost our rights to marry in California, thanks to that effort, in great part to the Mormon church, and to a lesser degree Catholics, who invited the Mormons to join the fray back in June. Rights were also lost in Florida and Arizona on November 4th, as well as a number of other states in previous elections.

While I’m happy for the people of Connecticut who made a stand and didn’t let fear get in the way of equal rights, I wonder if more money had been spent in support of the constitutional convention, would gay men and women still be saying “I do” today.

Several months ago Barack Obama came out against Proposition 8 but hasn’t said much in the way since. Until tonight.

On the 10/30/08 edition of NBC’s Nightly News, Brian Williams asked Obama about his approach to picking Supreme Court justices in lieu of a litmus test. Half way through the answer, and unprompted, Obama brings up marriage and the right to privacy.

“The right to marry who you please, isn’t in the constitution. But I think all of us assume, a state decided to pass a law saying Brian, you can’t marry the woman you love, that you would think that was unconstitutional. Well, where does the come from? I think it comes from a right to privacy.”

See the clip below.

Maybe I’m reaching here but I think this a not-so-subtle nod to Prop 8 in California, and the proposed bans in Florida and Arizona.

While I would prefer something more forthright, I’ll take what I can get. What do you think? Am I totally off base here?

It appears that that No on Prop 8 website, and Florida’s No On 2 site (another anti-gay marriage initiative) were both victims of hackers yesterday evening in a coordinated denial of service attack at the height of fundraising efforts.

The No on Prop 8 campaign released the following statement:

“Today the NO on Prop 8 campaign’s Web site (http://www.noonprop8.com/) was the victim of what appears to be a coordinated attack designed to bring the system down. According to http://www.calitics.com/, the denial-of-service attack (DoS) on the NO on Prop 8 website occurred before 11:30pm, Wednesday, October 29th and coincides with a similar attack on Florida’s NO on 2 campaign, the Constitutional Amendment Against Marriage Equality. According to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in a denial-of-service (DoS) attack, an attacker attempts to prevent legitimate users from accessing information or services. By targeting a computer and its network connection, or the computers and network of the sites, an attacker may be able to prevent someone from accessing email, web sites, online accounts (banking, etc.), or other services that rely on the affected computer. The most common and obvious type of DoS attack occurs when an attacker ‘floods’ a network with information.”

When attempting to make a donation last night we noticed how how sluggish the No on Prop 8 website was, but attributed it to an increase intraffic due to donations and not anything sinister.

Sometimes the site still feels sluggish today. If you are unable to get through to make a donation, you can also donate through ActBlue or at Equality California. The No on Prop 8 campaign needs $3 million in donations by midnight Friday to counter the opposition’s recent surge in donations to purchase airtime for ads between now and election day. The campaign fears we may lose without this support.

While I am not surprised by the intellectual dishonesty of No on Prop 8’s opponents, I am a little surprised with the intellectual capability of it’s supporters to put together such an attack.

I guess hackers come in all stripes, even bigots.

As VP candidate Sarah Palin discussed Barack Obama’s alleged ties to William Ayers at a rally in Clearwater, Florida (surprise) today, one of her fervent supporters shouted “Kill Him!” Palin failed to rebuke them and moved on with her allegations. It’s now abundantly clear the McCain campaign is happy to foment it’s base into an angry frenzy to get them to get out and vote against Obama and his “terrorist pals“.

And earlier today at another rally, McCain allowed one of his supporters to call Barack Obama a terrorist without so much as a blink.

I’m not asking the candidates to control their supporters, I know that’s pretty much impossible. But at least call them out when they make such outrageous and incendiary statements. But they can’t even bother to do that. Just imagine the outrage on the right if something like this had happened at an Obama rally.

This is what the race has boiled down to. And we all may suffer for it.