Legion of Angels News Archive

WASHINGTON (CNN) – A new national poll suggests that only a quarter of Americans think things are going well in the country today, while the rest of those questioned are angry, scared and stressed out.

Seventy-five percent of those surveyed in a CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll released Tuesday said things are going badly in the United States.

An equal portion of those polled said they are angry about the way things are going. Two-thirds of those questioned said they’re scared about the way things are going and three in four said the current conditions in the country are stressing them out.

“It’s scary how many Americans admit they are scared,” said Keating Holland, CNN’s polling director. “Americans tend to downplay the amount of fear they have when facing tough times. The fact that more than six in 10 say that they are scared shows how bad things are getting.”

The 25 percent who said things are going well in the country is another indicator of the negative mood among Americans.

“Prior to 2008, we have seen that level of dissatisfaction only three times in the past four decades — during Watergate, the Iranian hostage crisis and the recession of 1992,” Holland added.

The survey also suggests that most Americans are not happy with President Bush. Seventy-two percent of those questioned disapprove of the president’s handling of his job.

The war in Iraq also continues to be unpopular with Americans, with 32 percent of those questioned favoring the war.

The CNN/Opinion Research Corp. poll was conducted Friday through Sunday, with 1,058 adult Americans questioned by telephone. The survey’s sampling error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Source — CNN

SAN FRANCISCO, California (CNN) – The California Supreme Court has cleared the way for Californians to vote in November on whether to ban same-sex marriages in the state.

The court on Wednesday denied a petition to remove the initiative from the state’s general election ballots. The unanimous decision was handed down without elaboration.

Hundreds of marriage licenses have been issued to same-sex couples since mid-June, a month after the court overturned the state’s laws against such unions.

However, on June 2, opponents of same-sex marriage filed for a ballot initiative that would ban such marriages in the state’s constitution. Such a ban would overturn the court’s May ruling.

Equality California, a Sacramento-based activist group, filed a petition against the initiative — Proposition 8 — arguing that it involves a constitutional revision that can’t be adopted through a ballot vote.

The group also contended that petitions circulated to qualify the proposition for the ballot contained material that misled readers about the measure’s effects.

Jennifer Kerns, a spokeswoman for the proposition, called Wednesday’s decision “a huge victory.”

“We believe it deals a strong blow to our opponents and sends a strong message that they won’t be able to keep the ballot initiative away from the people of California,” she said.

Calls Wednesday to Equality California were not immediately returned.

If the proposition is approved, it would be the second time same-sex marriages have been voided in California.

In February 2004, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom — who is considering a run for governor — challenged the state’s laws against same-sex marriage, ordering city officials to issue marriage licenses to gay and lesbian couples.

Those unions were voided by the California Supreme Court, though the justices sidestepped the issue of whether banning same-sex marriage was unconstitutional, allowing legal cases to work their way through the lower courts.

Several gay and lesbian couples — along with the city of San Francisco and gay-rights groups — sued, saying they were victims of unlawful discrimination.

A lower court ruled San Francisco had acted unlawfully in issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples. However, the state Supreme Court’s ruling in May struck down the state’s ban on same-sex marriage as unconstitutional.

That decision made California the nation’s second state, after Massachusetts, to legalize same-sex marriage. Four other states allow civil unions.

Source — CNN