Tag: Election

Red State Blues

~ Deb ~ 3 Comments

CNN’s Rick Sanchez showed an interesting map earlier this week.  It was a map of the United States broken into counties.  Each county was shaded either a variation of red or blue based upon whether the county voted more Democratic or more Republican than four years ago.  It was not a breakdown of who actually won the county, mind you, but more of an illustration of political tendency.  So a county could go for McCain but be shaded light blue if McCain only won by, say, 52% and Bush had won it four years ago by 56%, thus the light blue indicating a downward movement for Republicans and slight increase for the Democrats.

With the recent major shift towards the Democrats, not just in the Oval Office, but also in the House and the Senate, it should not be surprising that the country was almost entirely painted in varying shades of blue, light to dark depending on the size of the shift.  Ohio?  Blue.  North Carolina?  Blue.  Southern Mississippi?  Yep, blue.  Almost the entire country, except . . . Arkansas, Tennessee, Northern Louisana, Eastern Oklahoma were almost solid red.

The question was asked on Sanchez’ show about whether this reflected racism still running through a wide swath of the south.  A Republican strategist essentially replied that this kind of question was only asked by trouble-making Democrats who wanted to belittle the Republican party.  Well, then, you can consider me a trouble-making Democrat.

I’ve heard story after story about racist responses to this election.  There were rumors going around local high schools here in Middle Tennessee the day of the election that if Barack Obama won then white kids were going to bring guns to school and kill all the black kids.  In rural Georgia, people were flying flags at half-mast.   An African-American student at Middle Tennessee State University walked out of his dorm room and saw the N word written on the railing of his dorm balcony.

I DO NOT believe that voting Republican automatically makes someone a racist (of course not).  But there was a strong national trend this year that one specific section of the country resisted strongly.  There are likely many reasons for that, and I believe one of them is racism.

What do you think?

More Sweet than Bitter, but still Bittersweet

~ Deb ~ 2 Comments

I love exit polls.  You know, those breakdowns of who votes how.  Long after Barack Obama gave the “speech heard ’round the world,” I was still up into the wee hours analyzing the exit poll data on CNN.com.   I was particularly interested in details of that heartbreaking California Proposition 8 result.  Since the yes/no breakdown is sometimes confusing (yes, I want gay marriage? yes, I don’t want gay marriage?), I will delineate based on a for/against basis, as in for gay marriage or against gay marriage.   Here are the bullet points:

Many breakdowns were very close to a 50/50 vote, not surprising since the result we have is about 52% against and 48% for.  Men and women both were close to 50/50, maybe 51/49 or 48/52, but still in the generally-split catagory.

Hispanics and Asians were also close to 50/50 with the Asians being slightly more for and the Hispanics being slightly against, but still about 50/50.

People with more education tended to be more for and people with less education tended to be more against.  Not surprising.  The more educated the person is, the more they recognize the wisdom in equality for all. (Generally speaking, of course.  Obviously, there are always exceptions to every rule, so don’t send me a zinger if you’re an open-minded, equality-minded high school drop-out.)

People of higher incomes tended to be more for; people with lower incomes tended to be more against.  But, people who make more money tend to be better educated, so refer to the above.

The only two demographic areas with an overwhelming majority against were evangelical Christians (not a surprise) and African-Americans, who went about 70% against.

So, the question I have is this: Shouldn’t a group which understands oppression as well as any in our society stand on the side of expanding rights for others rather than denying them?  I’m not asking anyone to forego their personal beliefs or their particular version of morality.  I’m not even asking anyone to understand.  Whether you “get” homosexuality or not, wouldn’t a person who has felt the pain of second-class citizen status take the position of “erring” on the side of giving rights rather than “erring” on the side of withholding them?

Anyone who knows me knows how passionate I have been for years about eradicating racism.  And that certainly won’t ever change.  My strong desire for equality is not a tit-for-tat proposition.  But, I can’t help but ponder the fact that if the African-American population of California had stood up for the right of gays and lesbians to marry to the same degree that gays and lesbians voted for Barack Obama, . . . equality would have won.

I Hope They Have CNN in Heaven

~ Deb ~ 2 Comments

I have been contemplating for days now just how I would achieve some semblance of balance once this election is over.  This blog was intended to be far more high-minded than a daily discussion of mere politics.  But I believe that everything has a bearing on the spiritual journey.  Our evolution doesn’t happen in a vacuum.  I assumed that my 12-step program for this political addiction would begin on Wednesday (with step one, a belief in a Higher Office).

And then Toot died.

I heard it this afternoon right as the news broke on MSNBC.  Barack Obama’s ailing grandmother had passed away in Hawaii.  I thought about what a difficult day this must be for him, but I also thought about my own grandmother who passed away 22 years ago.  Sometimes I still talk to her, especially on a starry night when I have a lot on my mind.  I certainly still feel her energy and remember her spirit.  How intensely must Toot’s presence be felt in Senator Obama’s private moments on this night.

It seemed impossible to surpass the profound symbolism of Obama’s Democratic National Convention speech taking place on the 45th anniversary of the death of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.  Yet, this feels bigger somehow.  The people who raise children, be they parents or grandparents or other loving adults, pour more than money and time and expectation into them; they imbue them with their own spiritual stuff, strength of character, and internal compass.

It seems immensely sad that Madelyn Dunham did not live to hear a news anchor say, “We can now safely declare that Senator Barack Obama of Illinois will be the 44th President of the United States of America.”  But, perhaps Toot just wanted to make sure she had the best seat in the house for this show tomorrow.

And on starry nights when there is much on his mind, I feel certain that Barack Obama will feel her all around him and seek her counsel once again.

Proposition Hate

~ Deb ~ 2 Comments

As important as the presidential election is this year, that’s not the only race that will have my attention on Tuesday.  California’s Proposition 8 is perhaps as pivotal a civil rights decision as we have seen in many years.

This past May, the California Supreme Court ruled that denying gays and lesbians the right to marry violated the state constitution.  Almost immediately, the very people whom this would least effect jumped into high gear to introduce a ballot initiative to overturn that decision.   The religious right and, most specifically, the Mormon Church has devoted millions of dollars and enlisted thousands of people to this cause.

With the Supreme Court’s decision this past May, California became the second state in the country to legalize marriage for gays and lesbians (Massachusetts having been the first).  Since then, Connecticutt has made a similar decision.  This early and intense challenge to California’s law is seen by many legal analysts as a canary in the mine for the way this issue may play out in other states over the coming years.

The arguments for gay marriage are legion and are supported by law and history.  The arguments against gay marriage essentially boil down to one thing – religious belief.  But, religion has nothing to do with it.

Since about the time that Henry VIII got irked at the Pope for denying him a divorce and started his own church, marriage has been a civil issue in most of the western world.  In this country, the government has always been in charge of marriage, which is in truth a legal contract.  This is why every church wedding I’ve ever attended included the words, “by the power vested in me by the state of (fill in the blank).”   The first marriage of two European settlers on the North American continent was performed by William Bradford acting on the authority of his position as Governor.  The early Puritans actually believed that the English custom of marriage by clergy was unscriptural.  Now, I don’t have any quarrel with big church weddings.  In fact, I believe it is only fitting that two people would include their spirituality in what will likely be one of the biggest days of their lives.  But the simple fact is, the church doesn’t own marriage.

What is immensely distubing to me is that people who are commanded to love their neighbor as themselves are so angrily determined to suppress equal rights for an estimated 10% of the population.  They have nothing to lose, and gay people have everything to gain, so the only motivation they could possibly have is religious bigotry.  When pressed into a corner, they sometimes offer the olive branch of “civil unions,” a legal contract between two people who choose to build a life together (do I need to point out that is EXACTLY what marriage is?).  Haven’t we already learned this lesson?  In 1896, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in the Plessy v. Ferguson decision that segregation was okay as long as facilities were “separate but equal.”  Brown v. The Board of Education overturned that ruling in 1954 when it was determined that separate was inherently not equal.  The most interesting aspect of the civil unions debate is that it implies the opponent would concede the rights as long as they still owned the word.  I could almost say, “Fine, just give me the rights, and I’ll use the word anyway.”  Nobody owns a word, you dip-wads.  But separate is not equal.  Different is not the same.

The most difficult challenge in this issue is getting non-gay people to care.  I know that those who aren’t gay don’t feel the sting like we do, just as white people will never truly understand the African-American experience.  But, gays and lesbians across this nation, including me and my wife, are passionate about this because it is vital for us.  Only marriage can give me all the tools I need to protect my family.  This may seem like an off-the-radar social issue to many Americans, but to me it is my family’s finances, healthcare, inheritance issues, relationships, property rights, and basic definition that is at stake.  For me, it is the right to say, “This is my family.”  That, my friends, is not a small thing.   And just as white people marched with Dr. King, it will take equality-minded straight people to help win this fight.

On Tuesday, hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, of Californians will walk into a voting booth and vote on something that has no effect on them, but the most essential effect on many others.  They will vote yes on Proposition 8.  They are the playground bullies who won’t share the swingset.  No, that’s too kind.  They are the segregationists of the 21st Century.  My deep hope is that hundreds of thousands, maybe millions, plus 1 vote no on this proposition of suppression and inequality.  But it will take all of those who feel the full effect of this bigotry . . . plus an army of others who simply care enough to care.