what the

so I went on my yearly tradition, my yearly ceremony, my yearly right & responsiblity as an adult US citizen. The yearly trip to the voting booth. I took Fi & Madster b/c I thought they would enjoy the lesson in civic duty. I know that it is something that I have cherished (& previous to 22 years ago, looked forward to with much anticipation. Well, my birthday does fall relatively close to the first Tuesday after the first Monday in November; so it was always a little milestone on the way to my actual birthday celebration every year. Something to look forward to, a reminder that my birthday with accompanying cake & presents was not too far away).

Yeah, bummer that I don't watch the news b/c I would have known that the lines were horrendous. We stood in line for 2 hours!!!! Yes, TWO HOURS. Talk about fulfilling one's civic duty dutifully. That was 2 HOURS with an 8 yo & a 4 yo. Thank God they were well behaved. Extremely well behaved. They entertained each other nicely with only 1 minor mishap & 1 minor incident of annoying each other. They did help as much as they could when we finally got inside the polling place. I got to try out the new electronic booth. It was user friendly & maybe only a little more time consuming. I let Fi hit the yellow "continue" arrow so she wouldn't get bored. When we finally left (at 7 pm!), the line was just as long as when we started. Really, no need for anyone to "force" the polls to stay open until 9pm. Those volunteers (bless them) would be there until at least 9pm by my estimation.

So it seems to me that despite the shift in party preference, Colorado is more conservative than ever.

Voters want the state of Colorado to sue the Federal govt over lack of upholding illegal immigration laws.

Marijuana possession was voted down easily.

And the definition of "marriage" is now permanently defined as "one man & one woman" in the constitution (like anyone didn't already know the law).

And "domestic partnership" is still not a legal entity. Granted, I was a little thrown by the wording on the amendment that a "domestic partnership" was defined as between "two same sex persons". I mean, shouldn't it be just "two persons" not married. As in anyone who is not married but is in a committed relationship with one other person could have legal rights the same as someone who is married. Geez, this is difficult to put in words just now. I was offended by the wording, really. G & I got into a little argument about this (you can guess who was for & who was against). It's a matter of basic human rights, if you ask me. I said that technically, the only reason he & I have any legal rights as partners is because just that, we are heterosexual. Because technically, we're not anymore "married" than someone in a committed relationship who is homosexual. I would say, isn't a marriage license just a piece of paper, after all? I hate to say that, but it's true. It's a relationship sanctioned by the government & everyone else, for that matter. But why? The way the divorce rates are today, it seems that "married" couples are no more committed to each other than folks who aren't legally married. There's this illusion of committment, to be sure, because of all the ceremony that goes into a marriage. But really, what it comes down to is each person's own committment to the relationship, not necessarily the piece of paper that states there is a marriage "contract" between two people. Call me jaded, because I am. But I know first hand that "contracts" are too easily broken without committment from both parties.