breaks my heart

today california once again voted to continue the ban on gay marriage and uphold prop 8.
there is so much sadness in this world, are there any real reasons why we should strive to create more of it based simply on personal or cultural religious reasons?
it is assumed that in the united states you can not outlaw something based on religious reasons alone...but when the arguments against gay marriage arise, there are no arguments that i can see that aren't somehow based on a religious belief. how does this make the united states any different from other countries that do create laws based solely for religious reasons??
honestly, i could talk politics all day long about this subject, but when it comes right down to it, the gay marriage ban just breaks my heart. it breaks my heart for some of my closest friends who are so very much in love and can't, like everyone else, make it "legal". basically each state against the legalization of gay marriage is saying to them, "you can have your civil unions, but you can't have the word 'marriage', that's reserved for us heterosexuals, who 'really' love each other and aren't sinners or 'abnormal'."
you know it wasn't that long ago that it was illegal for a caucasian and an african american to marry as well.
really? on the issue of marriage equality, have we just stopped evolving?