Nation watches as a divided California prepares to decide on same-sex marriage

Proposition 8, which would amend the California Constitution to ban gay marriage, has been extremely close in recent polling, with the Field Poll last week showing 49% against and 44% in favor of the measure, with 7% undecided.

That deep divide was reflected at polling places throughout Southern California.

Colleen Cross, 53, principal of Garden Grove High School, said that in addition to voting for the presidential ticket of John McCain and Sarah Palin she was eager to vote for Proposition 8.

"I'm conservative, and family values are important to me. I see the country taking a real liberal swing and it scares me to death," said Cross. "The moral center has moved so far left that I can hardly recognize my country anymore," she said.

Mark Lescroart, a neuroscience grad student at USC, went to his Silver Lake polling place this morning to vote for Barack Obama and against Proposition 8, which he called "a basic civil rights issue."

"I am a little bit sad it even got on the ballot in the first place," he said.

Along with the presidential race, the fight over gay marriage is among nation's most closely watched contests. Volunteers from around the country have staffed phone banks, and campaign contributions have come from every state in the nation to the "no" campaign, and every state but Vermont to the "yes" side.

The two sides raised nearly $74 million and blanketed the airwaves for weeks with expensive television and radio commercials.

The battle has also been waged on street corners and front lawns, from the pulpits of churches and synagogues and -- unusual for a fight over a social issue -- in the boardrooms of many of the state's largest corporations.

Most of the state's highest-profile political leaders -- including both U.S. senators and the mayors of San Francisco, San Diego and Los Angeles -- along with the editorial pages of most major newspapers, have opposed the measure. PG&E, Apple and other companies contributed money to fight the proposition, and the heads of Silicon Valley companies including Google and Yahoo took out a newspaper ad opposing it.

Many argued, as former President Bill Clinton did in a taped call to millions of registered voters in the days before the election, that the measure was discriminatory because it would strip rights from gay couples and treat them differently from heterosexual couples.