After awarding its 27 electoral votes to the incompetent George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004, Florida has finally shown signs of maturing. In 2008, our stubborn state budged, proving itself open-minded enough to support a progressive black man who is the antithesis of "W."
It only took eight years of indisputable failure at home and abroad, a global energy crisis and a global climate crisis, among other disasters, to get us to this point.
As St. Augustine said, "Ex malo bonum," or "out of bad comes good."
Not good enough, apparently. Yes, we've matured, but we haven't quite grown up.
In the same election, Florida has managed to uphold its adolescent narrow-mindedness, by voting "yes" on Amendment 2, the so-called "marriage protection amendment," which had nothing to do with protecting marriage. Not for anyone.
Anyone who did a bit of research could see the uselessness of Amendment 2 because Florida already has two statutes defining marriage as between a man and a woman.
The pernicious vagueness of Amendments 2's wording allows for a heterosexual couple's partnership rights to be stripped as well.
If it took a reasonable person to vote for President-elect Barack Obama, how is it that such an unreasonable amendment could have passed? After all, Obama won by a 50.8 percent to 48.5 percent margin over Sen. John McCain in Florida. Amendment 2 passed with 62.1 percent for and 37.9 percent against.
Admittedly, the candidate someone chooses for president and how someone chooses to define marriage are very different choices. The distinction to be made here is not between the choices themselves but between the motives behind each choice.
Obama's victory was driven by rationality, circumspection and the courage to change - qualities of a mature adult.
Amendment 2's victory was driven by emotion, blindness and intolerance to change - signs of an ego-inflated teenager.
Should marriage be a right reserved to one man and one woman? I'm not arguing whether it should or shouldn't, simply that Amendment 2 added nothing to the discussion. The amendment is frighteningly negative, and it was carried misguidedly into our constitution on the backs of prejudiced voters.
Amendment 2 was more of a bragging right, bumper-sticker issue than it was a real concern with the doctrine of marriage. Just take a look at the "Yes2Marriage Store" at Yes2marriage.org, filled with overpriced T-shirts, bumper stickers, buttons and a cute, little teddy bear. Such positive zeal for taking away a fellow human's rights.
If its supporters would have slowed down, looked at the issue objectively and considered the other side of the argument - the same sort of diligence and presence of mind it took to vote for Obama - they might have rejected the deceptive amendment.
Then again, maybe not.
The thought of two people of the same sex getting married seems so threatening that even a bill pretending to ban it can pass with a clear majority.
Even California, famed for its approval of homosexual marriage, had a change of heart in this election.
It's unfortunate, but it seems things will get worse for homosexuals before they get better. Ex malo bonum. Or, as I like to phrase it now, "Out of Bush, Obama."
Todd Portnowitz is a UF alumnus and former Alligator columnist.
