Election Thoughts
Nov. 5th, 2008 01:06 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lunasarielFor once, I leave aside the realms of fiction and abstract thought, and turn to the very real and concrete issue of the election. This was the first election I've been able to vote in, and I'm proud that this was the one. It was an extremely momentous ballot, with lots of controversial and potentially society-changing issues up for grabs. The two issues I was following most closely were Prop 8 and the presidential election, in that order.
As far as Prop 8 goes, I am grieved and ashamed. I thought we were smarter than this, this blindness and stupidity. I live in California, and I've always felt that I can brag about our forward-thinking ways, our justice and lack of discrimination. I can't say how sad it makes me that people are still too ignorant and fearful to deny one of the most fundamental rights of life to anybody. The government on any level saying who we can and can't marry is like saying where we can and can't live. These rights are so fundamental, so essential to being a free human, that any system that bills itself as just either leaves it up to the individuals to decide, or history views it as a repressive tyranny, not a democracy.
And that stupid "our children will be taught that being gay/gay marriage is okay" thing! I've gone through the American education system K-12 and beyond, and I have two siblings who have done the same, and I can recall not one single instance when we were instructed as to the moral nature of marriage, or anything involving marriage at all. I think teachers understand that out of any given class, some, if not many, will have parents that are divorced, separated, same-sex, or otherwise nontraditional, and that to get up in front of a class of kindergartners and say that "this marriage is all right, but that one is an abomination" is just a bad idea. Moral instruction of this nature should be left to the family, and the family alone. And if all else fails, nobody's making you send your kids to public school! There are many fine private schools, and if budgeting or distance is a problem, there's always homeschooling. In other words, don't deny happiness to so many people just because your kid might conceivably be taught that two men or two women getting married is a joyous occasion, not an affront unto the Lord.
I dunno, this just makes me sick. This is exactly the same "separate but equal" mess that necessitated the Civil Rights movement. People keep whinging about how domestic partnerships have all the same legal benefits of marriage, but they completely ignore the emotional aspect of it. No ceremonies with white gowns and tuxes, no party with friends and family, no rings, and no photos to treasure. My dad re-married recently, and two of his most treasured possessions are his wedding ring, and the photo album of his wedding. Imagine how he would feel if he was told that he couldn't marry my stepmom because she was from Nicaragua, which makes just about as much sense as halting a marriage because the happy couple-to-be shared a gender. And then there's that vaguely shameful aspect, that feeling that you're only barely tolerated. People observe the legal niceties because they are "civilized" and "modern," but when it comes to emotional and social support, there's nothing.
I could write about this all day, it makes me that mad. But on the other hand, America has proved that not everybody is as imbecilic as California's voters, and Barack Obama is now slated to be our nation's first black President. I was working the late shift at the library, and we were listening to the election results on the radio, when the announcement came over. I heard Obama's victory speech, and I thought, "there is someone who wants to do what's right." I think he's going to be good for this country, I really do. But what I'm most looking forward to is being able to travel outside the U.S. without that slinking, shameful feeling that makes me almost feel like I should introduce myself not by my name, but by the fact that I didn't vote for Bush, and I don't support what he's doing, and we're not as arrogant and dumb as he's making us look. I was listening as international reporters described the party in Germany, and something about the Prime Minister of Zambia, and I started thinking that the U.S. might finally go from the dumb jock back to the class president we used to be. And when Obama mentioned that 106-year old black woman voting! I think of all she's seen in her life, and it just boggles the mind. So much good, and so much bad. She's seen the bar of the worst humans can do to each other raised from mustard gas to machine guns to bombs to tanks to the Bomb to anthrax to 9/11. But on the other hand, she's gained so much in the way of rights and health. You can bet your butt that she wouldn't have lived this long fifty years ago, nor would she have been able to vote, since she lives in Georgia. But she's seen women gain the vote, civil rights grow by leaps and bounds, and the U.S. go from promising new world power to global hero to international bully, and maybe back again. She's seen JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., FDR, Eleanor Roosevelt, Einstein, Churchill, Hitler, Stalin, and even the freaking Kaiser!
So overall, for me the 2008 election has been half uplifting hope for tomorrow, and half crushing despair for today. Dammit California, why couldn't you do the right thing just for one day?
As far as Prop 8 goes, I am grieved and ashamed. I thought we were smarter than this, this blindness and stupidity. I live in California, and I've always felt that I can brag about our forward-thinking ways, our justice and lack of discrimination. I can't say how sad it makes me that people are still too ignorant and fearful to deny one of the most fundamental rights of life to anybody. The government on any level saying who we can and can't marry is like saying where we can and can't live. These rights are so fundamental, so essential to being a free human, that any system that bills itself as just either leaves it up to the individuals to decide, or history views it as a repressive tyranny, not a democracy.
And that stupid "our children will be taught that being gay/gay marriage is okay" thing! I've gone through the American education system K-12 and beyond, and I have two siblings who have done the same, and I can recall not one single instance when we were instructed as to the moral nature of marriage, or anything involving marriage at all. I think teachers understand that out of any given class, some, if not many, will have parents that are divorced, separated, same-sex, or otherwise nontraditional, and that to get up in front of a class of kindergartners and say that "this marriage is all right, but that one is an abomination" is just a bad idea. Moral instruction of this nature should be left to the family, and the family alone. And if all else fails, nobody's making you send your kids to public school! There are many fine private schools, and if budgeting or distance is a problem, there's always homeschooling. In other words, don't deny happiness to so many people just because your kid might conceivably be taught that two men or two women getting married is a joyous occasion, not an affront unto the Lord.
I dunno, this just makes me sick. This is exactly the same "separate but equal" mess that necessitated the Civil Rights movement. People keep whinging about how domestic partnerships have all the same legal benefits of marriage, but they completely ignore the emotional aspect of it. No ceremonies with white gowns and tuxes, no party with friends and family, no rings, and no photos to treasure. My dad re-married recently, and two of his most treasured possessions are his wedding ring, and the photo album of his wedding. Imagine how he would feel if he was told that he couldn't marry my stepmom because she was from Nicaragua, which makes just about as much sense as halting a marriage because the happy couple-to-be shared a gender. And then there's that vaguely shameful aspect, that feeling that you're only barely tolerated. People observe the legal niceties because they are "civilized" and "modern," but when it comes to emotional and social support, there's nothing.
I could write about this all day, it makes me that mad. But on the other hand, America has proved that not everybody is as imbecilic as California's voters, and Barack Obama is now slated to be our nation's first black President. I was working the late shift at the library, and we were listening to the election results on the radio, when the announcement came over. I heard Obama's victory speech, and I thought, "there is someone who wants to do what's right." I think he's going to be good for this country, I really do. But what I'm most looking forward to is being able to travel outside the U.S. without that slinking, shameful feeling that makes me almost feel like I should introduce myself not by my name, but by the fact that I didn't vote for Bush, and I don't support what he's doing, and we're not as arrogant and dumb as he's making us look. I was listening as international reporters described the party in Germany, and something about the Prime Minister of Zambia, and I started thinking that the U.S. might finally go from the dumb jock back to the class president we used to be. And when Obama mentioned that 106-year old black woman voting! I think of all she's seen in her life, and it just boggles the mind. So much good, and so much bad. She's seen the bar of the worst humans can do to each other raised from mustard gas to machine guns to bombs to tanks to the Bomb to anthrax to 9/11. But on the other hand, she's gained so much in the way of rights and health. You can bet your butt that she wouldn't have lived this long fifty years ago, nor would she have been able to vote, since she lives in Georgia. But she's seen women gain the vote, civil rights grow by leaps and bounds, and the U.S. go from promising new world power to global hero to international bully, and maybe back again. She's seen JFK, Martin Luther King Jr., FDR, Eleanor Roosevelt, Einstein, Churchill, Hitler, Stalin, and even the freaking Kaiser!
So overall, for me the 2008 election has been half uplifting hope for tomorrow, and half crushing despair for today. Dammit California, why couldn't you do the right thing just for one day?
