SACRAMENTO (CWNews.com) - Californians passed a measure to protect the current status of legal marriage in the state by a wide margin on Tuesday.

    About 61 percent of voters approved Proposition 22, while 39 percent opposed it. The briefly worded proposal said, "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid and recognized in California," and was a means to prevent the recognition of same-sex marriages performed in other states where it may be legalized.

    Exit polls found the measure was supported equally by men and woman and by all races and income groups. "Californians have rejected the politics of fear and division by passing Proposition 22," according to David Orgon Coolidge, director of the Marriage Law Project in Washington, DC. "Voters came together, across racial and religious lines, to reaffirm the meaning of marriage."

    Homosexual activists said they will work to have a new proposal passed through legislation, executive order, or via ballot which would grant the same legal rights to homosexual and lesbian couples as enjoyed by married couples.

    Pro-family groups, however, were emboldened by the California victory and other recent bans on same-sex marriage to predict that similar bans will soon be in place across the US. "If the liberal states of Hawaii, Alaska, and now California can do it, then the 19 other states without statutory protection for marriage can and must do it, too," said Janet Parshall, spokesman for the Family Research Council.