The California Secretary of State certified the final tally for the votes on Proposition 8. numbers ended up pretty much the same they were on Nov 4: 52.2 percent voted Yes on Prop 8, 47.7 voted No. San Francisco County was big for No. Check out the county-by-county numbers here. The Los Angeles County numbers couldn’t have been closer; 50.1 percent voted Yes to 49.9 voting No. With 3.2 million votes cast in L.A., less than 2,500 votes was the difference between L.A. County going No instead of Yes. However, L.A. County should have gone No by a couple hundred thousand votes to make a difference.

So even a casual search on Google News shows some pretty detailed stories on Day Without a Gay in San Francisco and San Diego, not exactly a surprise considering Prop 8, but the event is also getting play in Phoenix, Chicago, Philadelphia, Charleston and Miami. Not bad for a couple of L.A. guys who have never planned a mass demonstration before. I’m not blogging tomorrow, but that has more to do with me helping my mom paint her new apartment (what a good gay son, he is!). But it’s all over the place, this Day Without a Gay, which may be a bit of problem, or so warns the gals over at Queerty:

This is the double-edged sword of grassroots activism. When nobody owns an idea, it can mutate and change. Sometimes the mutations lead to better ideas, sometimes to worse. 

I like the volunteer angle, and it is certainly something different from the marching and witty sign making. Economics, especially in this climate, resonates with people. But will Day Without a Gay be overshadowed by some other big company announcing it is laying off thousands of workers? For many workplaces its turning into Forever Without a Gay, unfortunately.

Enough with The Empire State. How about The Garden State? New Jersey could beat its northern neighbor to the same-sex marriage punch, thanks to this state commission decision, not to mention a State Senate that doesn’t sport the Byzantine operatics reminiscent of a “Sopranos” episode.

Sometimes the most simple pieces of art end up being the most provocative. Take for instance this post from Box Turtle Bulletin, which tells the story of a student artist at Brigham Young University who constructed an installation that features photos of a gay student and another student who is straight but supportive. The pictures do not identify who is gay or straight. Not exactly the Virgin Mary covered in cow dung, right? Well think again. BYU put the kibosh on the installation. BYU also didn’t bother to tell the artist. All I can envision is a BYU administrator with his eyes tightly closed shut murmuring to himself, “I can’t see you, I can’t see you!”

Apparently Prop 8 booster and LA County Republican Chair Linda Boyd found that out the hard way this past weekend, when a coalition of Ron Paul supporters and GOP gays pissed about Boyd’s support for Prop 8 get her ass ousted from her position.

Boi from Troi provides all the details and includes a hilarious screed from Boyd’s husband, who is none too pleased with the “flotsam and jetsam” who had the audacity to show up and vote his wife out of her position. Boi from Troi isn’t all that sympathetic:

Enjoy the wilderness, Linda Boyd, and take solace that you are not alone in paying the price for supporting discrimination.  The rest of us will enjoy ourschadenfreude. 

Today I received an email from associate publisher and ad manager Greg Inzunza at Clout Magazine, a freebee glossy LGBT lifestyle mag that the publishers of the Long Beach Press-Telegram started a about a year ago. The whole idea of Clout was a magazine that built its ad base around non-sexual advertising and focused on travel, local Southern California personalities, home design and shopping–I wrote a pretty long piece for the first issue on the Long Beach Grunions, an LGBT swim team. That kind of ad strategy is not an easy world to live in, especially in the gay market, but it is possible (think the NYC-based MetroSource, another mag I occasionally contribute to).

Well, today the hammer fell. Here ’s what Inzunza said in his email:

In each issue we presented homes where couples lived and loved.  We can proudly say that our advertising revenue doubled when the State Supreme Court legalized gay marriage in May this year.  However, when Proposition 8 passed in the November 4 election, we saw revenue basically drop dramatically.

Look, there’s plenty wrong with the economic fundamentals of the publishing business–just ask The Tribune Company, The New York Times Co. and even Clout’s parent company LANG–so maybe Prop 8 is a convenient excuse to hide behind instead of saying the Clout model was never viable, particularly in a depressed ad market. But research has been done (here, for instance) showing same-sex marriage boosts the economy, so taking it away could have an opposite effect.

Inzunza sure thinks so. I talked to Greg tonight about the numbers, and he said he could pinpoint down to the day the California Supreme Court ruled on same-sex marriage by looking at his sales charts. Businesses that had never thought of advertising in gay pubs were suddenly interested, so much so that LANG incorporated same-sex wedding advertiser guides in all its publications, he explained. 

After the ballot initiative campaign started, that impacted ad sales to the tune of $15,000. And once Prop 8 passed, that was it. “It basically felt like they were trying to stay away from us,” he said. “With no legal tie-in, why should they promote it?”

To the most cynical supporters of Prop 8, this is a win-win. Marriage’s big threat to the anti-gay voices behind Yes 0n 8 was its ability to legitimize and visualize healthy, rather ordinary same-sex couples. Killing LGBT publications is another step in making people feel invisible.

According to The NY Daily News blog The Daily Politics, less likely to happen, despite a Democratic takeover of the State Senate: 

It now appears fairly certain that legislation to legalize gay marriage is on indefinite hold in the Senate as the result of the deal brokered by Senate Majority Leader-in-waiting Malcolm Smith and the Gang of Three.

A source close to the gang said the plan is to have the same-sex marriage bill introduced, determined to have fiscal implications (although I’m not exactly certain what those might be) and referred to the Finance Committee, which, assuming the agreement between the gang and Smith sticks, will be headed by Sen. Carl Kruger, who could stop the measure in its tracks.

Check out the story I wrote for Frontiers Newsmagazine’s web site about Marjorie Christoffersen, the embattled manager at El Coyote. She will no longer serve as a manager and is stepping down from El Coyote’s board.

Newsweek has a cover story in the current issue called “Our Mutual Joy” all about what it says in the Bible about homosexuality. Leviticus and the Apostle Paul’s dim view of marriage in general are all retread, but there was one Bible story I had forgotten:  

Gay men like to point to the story of passionate King David and his friend Jonathan, with whom he was “one spirit” and whom he “loved as he loved himself.” Conservatives say this is a story about a platonic friendship, but it is also a story about two men who stand up for each other in turbulent times, through violent war and the disapproval of a powerful parent. David rends his clothes at Jonathan’s death and, in grieving, writes a song:

I grieve for you, Jonathan my brother;
You were very dear to me.
Your love for me was wonderful,
More wonderful than that of women.

Here, the Bible praises enduring love between men. What Jonathan and David did or did not do in privacy is perhaps best left to history and our own imaginations.

And if that’s not enough gay Newsweek for you, the magazine has a fab Q&A with Rufus Wainwright.

The Des Moines Register has a good primer for the Iowa Supreme Court same-sex marriage case that begins on Tuesday. Jane Schacter, a Stanford University law professor, explains in the article why the Hawkeye State is a good bet for marriage equality:

Iowa might have been an appealing target, Schacter said, because of the state court’s roster, public opinion polls, and the long process required to enact a constitutional amendment.

“All of these cases are being watched very, very closely,” Schacter said. “There’s not a rush to get a national resolution. There has been a lot of coordination on both sides, because it’s proceeding state-by-state.”