Well, I did my duty.

Last night I organized my voter registration confirmation, photo IDs and utility bills that show my current address -- in the near certainty of being 'challenged' at the polls. I also included my notes for the judge candidates (where party affiliation is not listed). First thing this morning, I gathered this pile and walked to the precinct polling place, a church gymnasium one block away.

After months of shrill battleground rhetoric and the menace of potential voting-day fraud, it was almost disappointing how calm everything actually was. I walked in a humid drizzle past silent banks of leaves; inside, my footsteps echoed off tiled walls.

No lines, no crowds, no sidewalk picketers or banners, no challenges. Someone compared my signature to the photocopy on file from the voters registration card. I was given a ballot and an I Voted Today sticker. That was all.

No surprise to you, I voted a strict ticket and against silly Issue One, Ohio's referendum to add an amendment "defending marriage" to the state constitution. I say it's silly but it will likely pass and, even if in name only, it has some very un-silly consequences.

Funny how things connect. My friend R has been staying with me and it's been like a slumber party. We have been renting videos and lie on pillows, giggling in front of the living room TV. Last night, we watched Elizabeth, starring Cate Blanchett.

In the aftermath of Henry the VIII, England is torn between catholic and protestant alliances and in the early scenes, Elizabeth, not yet queen, is arrested for treason against her half-sister, the ruling Mary Queen of Scots. As three men surround to interrogate her in the tower of London, she says:

"We all believe in God. Why is it the small question of religion divides us..."

"No!" One accuser lunges, "Religion is no 'small question.' There is only one way. All else is heresy."

To me, the First Amendment has always provided the ethical compass that should guide America and makes its government what it is. Standards rooted in alleged morality -- not to mention rigid dogma -- have no place in our government and have always bothered me. If Bush is elected for another term, I hope there will be enough reason, a critical mass, that stems the tide against his form of a modern Inquisition.

We probably won't know the answer to that tonight. R has left, on her way to Washington, and I don't know whether I will take a quiet bubble bath and curl up with a book, or join some of my BIPC friends to drink -- in celebration or in sorrow -- at the local Democratic Headquarters.