Rome wasn't built in a day....

si parla molto degli 11 referendum contro i matrimoni gay. ma intanto sempre in Ohio, a Cincinnati, nello stesso Stato che consegna la vittoria a Bush e ai Repubblicani, in una citta' notoriamente gay unfriendly viene abolito dopo 11 anni - sempre grazie ad un referendum-l'odioso Articolo XII del City Charter che vietava legislazioni ad hoc per difendere gli omosessuali dalla discriminazione.

The Cincinnati victory illustrated a point that activists have been making about this year’s ballot initiatives. Cincinnati’s gay community has been preparing for years.“The community there has been working at this very diligently for over two years”. It became apparent that the wider community would face the November 2 ballot initiatives (sui matrimoni, ndb) in just the past few months. There was little time to prepare for those campaigns and limited resources to wage them.“The question was called too early,” Jacques said. “There is a lot more education, there is a lot more discussion that needs to take place. We can’t win at the ballot box until we win at the water cooler.” .... While it was a loss, Oregon (lo stato in cui il reverendum sull'emendamento costituzionale contro i matrimoni e' passato con lo scarto piu' basso: 57%, ndb) showed that it was possible to influence voters on the gay marriage issue, according to Foreman. The Oregon group that fought the initiative there spent $2.8 million, with just under $800,000 of that cash coming from NGLTF, while supporters spent $2.3 million. Both sides had volunteers going door-to-door or working in churches. The 14-point spread demonstrated the effectiveness of that work.“We actually showed that we moved the electorate,” Foreman said. “If we are able to talk to voters about why marriage matters we are able to move people.”As they did following the successful votes on gay marriage bans in Louisiana and Missouri earlier this year, activists said the campaigns had other benefits.The gay organizations in the 11 states identified “tens of thousands of new voters,” “thousands of new donors,” and formed “new alliances” with gay-friendly allies, according to Rea Carey, NGLTF’s deputy executive director. “The gay community really used these campaigns,” Carey said. “Even though these amendments passed, our community will be coming out stronger.”"the more conversations you have with people, the more you engage in dialogue, the more progress we can make.... We have just begun to have the conversation on gay marriage in this country. We took 11 years here in Cincinnati” to repeal the anti-gay law.