Prop 8 Exit Polls

They show a narrow victory for marriage equality: 52 to 48. Every ethnic group supported marriage equality, except African-Americans, who voted overwhelmingly against extending to gay people the civil rights once denied them: a staggering 69 - 31 percent African-American margin against marriage equality. That's worse than even I expected. Whites, on the other hand, clearly rejected discrimination: 55 to 45 percent. Latinos were evenly split. But what matters, of course, is the margin of all the votes. It's still an exit poll, and those polls sometimes under-estimate anti-gay sentiment. So no assurance. But some provisional hope. If marriage endures in California, this debate is over - in America and the world.

Oh, and there was no gender gap. And a massive generation gap: the under-30s voted for marriage equality by 67 to 31 percent. The over 65s voted for discrimination by 57 - 43 percent.