There has been much written lately about the success of Proposition 8, and for the most part I have nothing to add, and I doubt anyone would want to listen to what I do have to say. But I do have to add in one important detail that I have not often read about in the discussion: the fact that marriage is a positive freedom. When society or government gives you the right or privilege of marriage, they are not refraining from infringing your liberty, they are giving you a new liberty. A liberty that is, in many ways, symbolic or nominal (although it does also give some real negative freedom, such as the ability to refrain from testifying against your spouse.)
I believe that in the United States, negative freedom is more often portrayed as the main variety of freedom, especially in popular culture. I think this is even more true in the past few decades, a lasting effect of the 1960s is a culture obsessed with autonomy. It is a definition of freedom that crosses political boundaries: men burning their draft cards were celebrating negative freedom; but so are modern day advocates of tax rebellion, such as Grover Norquist. And this goes for popular understandings as well: everyone here has, I am sure, seen that one 80s movie where a group of misfits and rebels has to stop negative, power mad authoritarian figures from squashing their right to self-expression.
Most movements towards freedom in the past few decades have been ones of negative freedom, to prevent government from interfering in people's lives. And this is where I think some proponents of gay marriage become a little bit confused, because this is not a matter of not wanting government to interfere in a person's personal life. It is a matter of wanting government to "intefere" in someone's social, not personal life. I can't rightly say that I have read everything written on both sides to know if the rhetoric of preventing interference is the prevailing mode of protest against Proposition 8's success, but based on my knowledge of American culture, I suspect it may be. This is, after all, the rhetoric that people are most used to, and the simplest to get across, so it will probably continue for a while, confusing this issue even further. I have my own suspicions about what will eventually happen, but I will keep those to myself for now.
And whoever first messages me saying that their own marriage is certainly neither positive nor a freedom gets a cookie!