More on Progressive America

Elizabeth Nolan Brown has a good post on the failure of social conservatives to pass socially conservative ballot initatives in states around the country:

South Dakota’s abortion ban failed, Colorado’s Embryo-American amendment failed, Michigan’s stem-cell research measure passed and Washington state’s assisted suicide measure passed. Massachusetts decriminalized marijuana and Michigan legalized it for medical purposes. Arkansas and Maryland both approved lotto measures.

It’s not just an Obama win, or a Democratic Congress win, but a major culture war win for progressives, too.

And, yes, Florida and Arizona banned gay marriage. California’s ban appears to be winning. And Arkansas’ ban on unmarried couples (read: gays) adopting or being foster parents passed (as Radley Balko lamented via twitter, “9,000 kids in foster care in Arkansas. Last night, 57 percent said they’re better off there than adopted by a gay couple”).

These last few things are disappointing. But they don’t fill me with the kind of despair all the gay marriage bans passing in 2004 did.

This only bolsters the point I made earlier today; yesterday was not only a victory for Barack Obama, it was a victory for liberalism, as Americans around the country voted in favor of progressive leadership at all levels of government.  Yes, when it comes to cultural progressivism, there were a few setbacks, but it seems that – as Nolan notes – at this point, it is more a matter of waiting than anything else.