Gay Marriage Ban Ballot Backlash

The passage of Proposition 8 - California's initiative banning same sex marriage - is sparking protests and division across the state, CBS Evening News correspondent John Blackstone reports from San Francisco.

Some voters who joined forces, just last week, to elect the President, now find themselves on opposite sides.

For the third straight day thousands of people marched in California, protesting the election night passage of Proposition 8 - banning same sex marriage.

Crowds continued to target the Mormon church, which poured millions into promoting the same-sex marriage ban and encouraged members to cross state lines to join the campaign. Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger - who opposed the bill - says gay rights supporters were outmanned.

"They had a very strong campaign, the pro-proposition 8 people, and I think, they people who tried to defeat it and they did not have as good of a campaign or as much money behind it," Schwarzenegger told CNN's Late Edition.

But the breakdown of who voted for the bill is starting to raise concerns for some in the gay community. Exit polls show that while blacks made up 10 percent of the total vote, 70 percent of African-American voters supported Prop. 8. Whites, Hispanics and Asians were virtually evenly split.

African-Americans are historically more socially conservative and proponents of the ban tapped into that sentiment by seeking out black church leaders for support.

"It's not a civil rights issue, because as African-Americans we can't change the color of our skin," says pastor Edward Smith, who supported the ban on gay marriage.

The fact that African-Americans turned out in record numbers to vote for Barack Obama while overwhelmingly voting yes on Proposition 8 created personal conflict for some.

"I think the basis of my conflict comes from my upbringing in the church," says Jacquelynn Hawthorne, an Obama supporter.

That frustrates some civil rights leaders - they compare the struggle to the 1967 Supreme Court case of Richard and Mildred Loving, who were arrested in Virginia because interracial marriage was illegal in 16 states.

"Once we present this in the right way and we do the education we should do, I'm not worried at all because African-Americans believe in justice," says Alice Huffman of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.

Gay rights advocates say they'll fight all the way to the Supreme Court, meaning protests like these may not end anytime soon.