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SAN FRANCISCO (CBS 5 / AP) ― The nation kept an eye on California Tuesday as voters cast ballots on high-profile initiatives aiming to ban gay marriage and require doctors to notify parents about abortions by minors.

Polls suggested a virtual tossup in voting for Proposition 8, after campaigns for and against the same-sex marriage measure flooded the airwaves in a vitriolic feud.

Groups fighting and supporting the initiative raised $73 million, a record for a social-issue initiative.

Cara Hughes, 24, and her partner, Mena Ramos, 25, voted against the measure. They held hands as Hughes cast her ballot at the Third Baptist Church in San Francisco; Ramos voted by absentee ballot.

"To take away an entire group's right is just plain wrong," Hughes said, worried the measure might not pass. 

Many voters expressed strong feelings about Proposition 8.

John McAndrews, 38, voted against the initiative at the San Francisco church.

"Everybody's free to love who they want. It shouldn't matter," he said.

In Sacramento. Richard Jackson, 56, an in-home caretaker, voted for Proposition 8 because he didn't want same-sex marriage to be taught in schools.

"In the Bible, it wasn't Steve and Steve, it was Adam and Eve," he said. "They don't need to put that in schools. It ain't right. I've got 24 grandkids and a little girl who's seven, and I don't want them around that."
 
While voters were closely divided over same-sex marriage, they also were deciding on another attempt to require parental notification for minors seeking abortions, two initiatives to boost the state's use of alternative energy and three to address crime and punishment.

Special interest groups made a final push to sway voters on California's dozen propositions.

In Los Angeles, two people dressed in chicken and cow suits held up pro-Proposition 2 signs at a corner on Sunset Boulevard during morning rush hour.

The measure sponsored by the Humane Society of the United States to set enclosure standards for farm animals had a small lead in pre-election polls. Opponents said it would force major egg producers to move out of state if approved.

Proposition 4, the abortion initiative, would require a 48-hour waiting period and parental notification before a minor could get an abortion. Polls have shown likely voters split on this measure.

Record-breaking voter registration — which pushed the state's voter rolls above 17.3 million, 5 percent higher than in the 2004 presidential election — led officials to add precincts and poll workers and order more ballots to meet the expected demand.

Buoyed by the voter registration gains and polls showing Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama with a lead of more than 20 percentage points, California Democrats hoped to do something they haven't in decades — gain a two-thirds majority in the state Assembly, giving them control over the state budget and any tax proposals.

Voters already inundated with bad news about the spiraling economy and a state budget deficit projected to be around $10 billion in the current fiscal year were being asked to spend billions of dollars on everything from a high-speed rail system to a bond to help build children's hospitals.

They were a risky gamble for an electorate already reining in its own spending, said Mark Baldassare, president of the Public Policy Institute of California.

"They don't get a chance to express themselves on government spending very often ... but they do get to express themselves on Election Day in a number of propositions," he said.

Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, his own image slipping in public opinion polls, was hoping to reform that system with an initiative that would take away lawmakers' power to draw the boundaries of state legislative districts.

Proposition 11 would give that power to a bipartisan commission, but would not affect congressional districts.

The secretary of state's office said 17.3 million voters were registered, and election clerks in some counties predicted turnout as high as 80 percent.

(© 2009 CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.)