It really saddens me to see how much delight some of our electorate takes in disenfranchising others. Elsewhere this morning a wag pointed out that had abolition been subjected to popular vote in 1866 it would have lost as well...
I think it's time for me to start collecting signatures for a ballot initiative to ban ice storms!
No doubt I can get the necessary signatures; I am sure it would pass with a number that would stagger the pundits, pollsters and politicos! It would become the law of the land and every major winter storm could be touted as illegal from then on!
That it wouldn't change a damn thing doesn't matter, I'd still get to gloat over my victory!
May the rest of this sad day and the rest of the week be kind to each of you...
alan
6 comments:
Thank you. You're right--LGBT people and our love are as natural as ice storms, even if some people don't like us. And civil rights gains for minorities are not usually won on majority votes for a *reason*. (Though I am glad that the citizens of Washington State provided an exception to that last night with their refusal to pass Referendum 71.)
The Penguins game was super-late last night (they played in California), so we TiVo'ed it and watched it this morning. Once again, I sighed over Bill Guerin while my wife gently gave my hair the "stop it, I'm here!" tug. It made me think of what a random thing it is--as a 50/50 bisexual woman, I could have fallen in love with and married a man quite easily, and not had to worry about, for example, doing our wedding over because the first one was legally invalidated or worrying about where our legal paperwork would be honored. Except, you know, that the other half of my brain is in another woman's body, and I happen to think that body's pretty awesome, too.
I have loved two men as well as one very special woman. I did not become any better or worse with each relationship. I was the same woman with the same strengths and weaknesses. I merely got *treated* worse for falling in love with a woman. My love for her is deeper and more serious than any I ever had for a man, yet it is trivialized by so many people. There are people whose whole jobs in life are to make lives like mine and L'Ailee's harder! It staggers me! If I ever met some of these people, I'd yell, "What the hell did we ever do to you?!"
I wish they'd help out victims of ice storms instead.
How is it that people in general think Rights are granted by popular vote? The idiocy of the easily manipulable birther-deather-tenther crowd astounds me. We either recognise or deny rights, not grant them, and denial is oppression pure and simple. But they are the virtuous ones (in their own minds) and will commit any evil to prove their holiness.
I heard a local teacher lamenting the fact that as the politics moved to the right during and since the Reagan years they've been restrained from teaching the Bill of Rights, the Constitution, how a bill becomes law, the check and balance system of government, etc. because they were told that teaching those things "teaches a liberal bias".
In other words, a critically thinking informed electorate was not easily led and therefore no longer desired...
I believe that also plays into education being first on the chopping block every time someone looks for a place to cut a budget!
alan
I love what you wrote Alan, and trust me I'll sign your petition the second it's available.
Then again I believed in No on 8 and No on 1 and still do. One of these days it's going to be reversed. There is a minor advantage to this happening if you can believe it, eventually someone's going to get it before the supreme court and they are going to put an end to this stupidity of voting away someone else's lives.
Until then I can only wait and pray.
Sam
There's a reason civil rights issues shouldn't be put in front of the people for a vote. If they all were, we'd still be using separate drinking fountains.
My mom has lamented for years the lack of civics classes in public schools. She's right.
Hope you get that Halloween pic up before Thanksgiving! We could use the smile these days! :)
You are a wise and kind man Alan.
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