Prop 8 aftermath

More than 10 million Americans in three states voted last week to deny marriage rights to gay people. With the addition of Florida, Arizona and California, 30 states now have constitutional bans on same-sex marriage. In Arkansas, voters even approved a ballot measure intended to block adoptions by gay men and lesbians.Mike Swift in the Daily News.

But nowhere did the gay rights movement suffer a more painful defeat than in California, the most populous and culturally influential state, where for the first time voters rescinded previously granted marriage rights. The national attention drawn to Proposition 8 - reflected by the more than $9 million in campaign donations that flooded into California from other states over the past two weeks, a large majority to support the ban - made the ballot measure something of a national test of gay marriage.