Among the more disturbing headlines from Tuesday's elections was the Iowa vote to toss out three of the state Supreme Court judges who'd ruled in favor of legalizing same-sex marriage. As the New York Times points out, this could be a harbinger of a national trend endangering the concept of an independent judiciary.
However, there's good news as well as bad news: The vote does not affect the legality of gay marriage in Iowa — so if you're a gay couple hankering to get hitched in Des Moines, you're welcome to it.
And there are other bright spots to report from Nov. 2's debacle, among them:
• Democrat Michael Bennet's victory in the Colorado U.S. Senate race. In a very close race, he defeated Republican Ken Buck, who infamously compared homosexuality to alcoholism.
• The victory in the Vermont governor's race of Peter Shumlin, who led that state's Senate when Vermont legalized gay marriage through legislation, not because of a court ruling — the only state in the country to do so.
This article appears in Nov 4-10, 2010.