Voting on Rights

I will never understand, to my dying day, why people feel that the civil rights of homoamorous people should be left up to the voters. America has NEVER let civil rights depend on the good will of the voters. Why? Because if we did, no one would ever gets rights except for the people who already have them.

Think of this... in 1863 if Abe Lincoln had said “I think that the slaves should be free... why don't we vote on it, north and south”, what do you think that the outcome of this vote would be? Even in states like Massachusetts and New York, which were among the first to outlaw slavery, there were laws limiting the number of “free negroes” who could live in each area. I think that it wouldn't have happened.

And what about women's sufferage? Bear in mind that the only people who could legally vote at that time were WHITE MALE LANDOWNERS. Do you think that, out of the goodness of their hearts, these white men would vote women (granted, only WHITE women at this time, but women nonetheless) part of their power? I think not.

And then the same thing when the civil rights bills were passed, first giving African-Americans the right to vote, and then equal protection under the law. To this DAY, there are people who resist this. Would the voters at large have EVER given equal coverage to black people?

One universal constant is that people in power tend to hold on to that power with all of their might, and only give it up unwillingly. This is why these issues need to be left up to the federal government and NOT the voters at large.

Which begs another question... why don't homoamorous people vote? I mean as a block. I hate to use blanket terms like that, but... as far as blanket terms go... it's more or less true.

Less homoamorous people vote than heteroamorous people, less poor people vote than well-off people, less black people vote than white people, less women vote then men, less young people vote than older people. Of course, the 2000 presidential election changed (although did not overturn) several of those, thank you Barack Obama. What does that leave? Old, heteroamorous, mostly well-off white male voters.

This is an issue that has ALWAYS confused me. Why do the people who would benefit the most from NOT having yet another hidebound old heteroamorous rich white man in the white house leave that decision up to me and my fellow old heteroamorous white men? (Not all of us are hidebound or rich.) I realize that I seem to be drifting afield of the point here, but what would have happened in the election of November, 2008 if the homoamorous people of California had turned out in DROVES (and, if they preferred, in drag) to vote on prop 8? I think that it would have gone down FLAMING (pardon the quite intentional pun).

This is why we have a representative government, folks. I hate to sound like an old-school, big-government democrat here, and I really DO hate the concept of a “daddy” government, but this is why we have a government. To make those tough decisions for us, and yes, sometimes to force change on an unwilling nation. I use the upcoming digital transition as an example. If left to our own devices, we would have been perfectly happy to remain on the analog standard forever, constantly bitching about dropped cell phone calls and lousy internet availability, and not being able to have enough good stuff to watch on our five hundred channels of cable. But wiser heads in our government saw how badly we were starving for bandwidth, saw how much the digital standard improved countries like Japan and said “Okay, let's do it.” As a people, we whined, we bitched, we moaned, we complained. There were proposed lawsuits to stop it. Conspiracy theorists went nuts talking about how this was all a conspiracy between government and big business to FORCE us to pay for new TV's. (This strikes me as the funniest, considering the millions of dollars that TV manufacturers and broadcasters had to go out-of-pocket to upgrade their manufacturing facilities and equipment.) And then, after all that bitching and moaning, the average American with a 32 inch analog TV is not satisfied with a perfectly good $399 32 inch HDTV, but they want a 58 inch monster that swallows their family room.

Get over yourselves, folks. Civil rights have NEVER been decided by popular election. They should never BE decided by popular elections. And, like it or not... I've said it before and I feel doomed to say it again... AMERICA IS NOT A CHRISTIAN NATION!

Which reminds me of another point.

I have recently become aware of fringe groups out there who want to “return” America to being a nation whose legal code is based on the laws of the Old Testament, similar to Sharia law in Muslim nations. Please allow me to say that America's legal code was NEVER based on Old Testament law, and never should be. Also, these groups want to make it so that only “Christians” can hold public office and even VOTE.

So now, let us for one insane, irrational moment pretend that this happens, okay? For a few years, the fundamentalists are happy. Prayer is reinstated in public schools, the “ten” commandments are posted on every available surface in public offices, and people who are either non-Christian or athiest are forced to take a pledge of Christianity at the polling place. Then a question arises... WHOSE interpretation of Christianity holds sway? My guess is that protestantism, being the largest sect in America, would hold sway. So Catholic kids would be forced to say the protestant version of, say, the Lord's Prayer in school. Then someone like Mitt Romney would not only not be allowed to run for office, he would be denied his right to vote. After all, very few mainstream protestants consider Mormons “real” Christians. Then we have women. Yes, a woman's right to choose a safe and clean abortion would be gone, but so would a woman's right to vote, to petition for divorce, to own property, and to attend church, all per the Old Testament. Yes, the death penalty would be put in place for homoamorous people, but also for football players (touching the flesh of a pig on the sabbath) and people like me who love shellfish. And if your child rejected Christianity (or, if you want to REALLY go according to the Old Testament, Judiasm), then not only would your child be put to death by stoning, but you would have to throw the first stone. It's there, folks. If you don't believe me, go look it up in your Bible. I'll wait.

…

Photography and film would be illegal according to the second commandment. Good God, taking the Lord's name in vain would be punishable by death! Women on their periods would be required BY LAW to remove themselves to the wilderness until their cycle passed.

Do you see the utter insanity that I'm talking about here, folks? So please... once and for all.... can we get off of our holier-than-thou high horses and just allow these people to marry? Please.

Peace.

Randal