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Arizona just became the first state where a ballot initiative to ban same-sex marriages was rejected by voters.
However, seven more states have joined the 20 that already had same sex marriage bans in place. The states were Wisconsin, Virginia, Tennessee, South Dakota, South Carolina, Idaho, and Colorado.
Arizona’s rejection of the same-sex marriage ban proposal is likely to gather attention across the country and rouse debate as to whether support for same-sex marriage is increasing.
The proposal in Arizona lost narrowly, winning 48.6 percent of the vote.
The percentage of voters opposed to the ban on same-sex marriages has increased from 2004’s 33 percent in 13 states, to 39 percent in the seven states in which the ban was proposed this year.
Massachusetts remains the only state where same-sex marriage was voted in and is explicitly legal, while several other states, including Vermont, Connecticut, Maryland, Washington, Alaska, New Jersey, and Maine, give same-sex marriages some level of recognition.
Colorado residents also rejected a proposal to give same-sex couples marriage rights through new “domestic partnerships.”
This past July, same-sex marriage opponents could not gather enough support in Congress for a constitutional amendment that would ban same-sex marriages nationwide.
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