Anti-gay ballot initiatives in four states have gay groups anxious as America goes to vote. With all four anti-gay measures too close to call, gay groups are holding their collective breath.

In California, Arizona and Florida voters are being asked to restrict the definition of marriage to one man and one woman, thereby banning gay couples from the institution. And in Arkansas, a ballot measure seeks to eliminate the right of gay couples from fostering or adopting children in the state.

“In almost every election, we hear candidates talk about this particular election being the most important of our lifetime,” Parent and Friends of Lesbians and Gays (PFLAG) Director of Communications Steve Ralls said. “This time, that may not be an exaggeration.”

All eyes, however, remain fixed on California, where Proposition 8 aims to overturn a May Supreme Court ruling that legalized gay marriage in the Golden State.

While it's not the first time voters have been asked to add the definition of marriage into their state constitution, it is the first time voters will decide on revoking gay marriage where it has already been granted.

California's May-to-November gay marriage campaign raised a staggering $70 million to decide the issue – the most ever on a social issue.

Throughout the campaign, each side motivated their base to donate more with over-the-top gloom-and-doom predictions.

For certain, gay marriage in California will influence the rest of the nation. But conservatives against gay marriage have held out an extreme apocalyptic view of gay marriage, calling it an “epic battle for the sanctity of marriage.” Rev. Jim Garlow, who has taken a leadership role in organizing the anti-gay marriage religious forces in California, said gay marriage would mean the “destruction of Western civilization.”

Then, it got really ugly.

Brad Dacus, president of the Pacific Justice Institute, likened gay marriage to the reign of Hitler at a boisterous Yes-On-8 rally.

“There was another time in history when people, when the bell tolled,” Dacus said. “And the question was whether or not they were going to hear it. The time was during Nazi Germany with Adolf Hitler.”

Conservative radio talk-show host Michael Savage told listeners of Savage Nation that “If you're insane, hate the family, hate man and woman, hate your mother and father, hate the Bible, hate the church, and hate the synagogue” then you would favor gay marriage.

Florida's gay marriage amendment, Amendment 2, is a broad amendment that seeks to strengthen the state's existing laws against gay marriage.

“In Florida, four state laws already prohibit gay men and lesbians from marrying their partners,” said Rand Hoch, president of the Palm Beach County Human Rights Council “If our community and allies fail to vote down Amendment 2 on election day, nothing changes.”

Gay activists in Arizona and Florida have been more concerned about losing in California than their own states which already prohibit gay marriage.

“I'm more concerned about California than Florida, because so much is at stake. If voters do not reject the referendum in California, losing will be a huge setback for GLBT [gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender] couples across the country,” said Hoch.

Arizona's gay marriage ban seems more likely to pass than Florida's, but voter rejection of a similar measure in 2006 gives gay activists in Arizona some reason to hope.

Recently won rights that allow gay couples to adopt and foster children in Arkansas also hang in the balance today.

Act 1 was placed on the ballot by The Family Council Action Committee (FCAC) after the Arkansas Supreme Court struck down a 1999 Child Welfare Agency Review Board rule that banned gay and lesbian couples from serving as foster parents, after a prolonged seven-year battle.

The measure would outlaw unmarried couples from adopting or fostering children – single people, living alone, would be free from the restrictions. And while the initiative bans both gay and straight couples, the FCAC's website lists banning gay and lesbian couples from adoption as a goal of the law.

“[Act 1] is about two things. It's about child welfare, first of all. Secondly, it is to blunt a homosexual agenda that's at work in other states and that will be at work in Arkansas unless we are proactive about doing something about it,” FCAC Executive Director Jerry Cox told Fox16 News.

The organization's website expands on the group's anti-gay rhetoric by saying, “Laws have been passed in eight states that support the homosexual agenda when it comes to the adoption or foster care of children. Arkansas has no law to prevent homosexual adoption. Homosexuals are adopting children and this will continue until a law is passed.”

“We're optimistic [about defeating the gay adoption ban], but we're going to keep working very, very hard,” Debbie Willhite, a spokeswoman for Arkansas Families First, recently told Joe Solmonese on XM Radio's The Agenda. “We're out there at the polls everyday, passing out literature, talking to people about what it really means if this passes.”

What it really means is a possible nationwide effort to ban gay couples from adoption, she said. “I believe, if it passes here, it could become the next right-wing wedge issue across the nation.”

Backing the FCAC in their effort to forbid gay couples from adoption is James Dobson's Colorado-based ministry Focus on the Family Action. The group has also donated millions to the California effort to ban gay marriage.

“When one thinks of all the orphans this man [James Dobson] could have fed with the money he has spent on attacking gay families, it is hard to consider him a real Christian,” said Truth Wins Out Executive Director Wayne Besen.

Today's vote boils down to an emblematic referendum on the country's acceptance of gays and lesbians. And to that end, the vote represents either the demise – or possibly the acceleration – of the culture wars.

“PFLAG remains hopeful, and cautiously optimistic, that the divisive, anti-family ballot measures in California, Florida, Arizona and Arkansas will be defeated on Tuesday,” Ralls said.