Election Week 2006 marked a turning point in the gay civil rights movement. Our battles are far from ended, but the same midterm correction that reaffirmed the wisdom of our nation's founders has confirmed that the tide of history is with our cause of equality under the law. Several anti-gay politicians were defeated. We won our first statewide marriage initiative. The amendment to write gay families out of the U.S. Constitution is gone with the Republican majority. And marriage equality is reaffirmed in Massachusetts. Let the naysayers grumble all they like. It's time for Thanksgiving.
It is also a time for taking stock. Although we lost 7 of 8 state initiative battles, the fact that the anti-gay vote was held to less than 60 percent in Colorado, South Dakota, Virginia and Wisconsin indicates public opinion is shifting toward us, and we can win given sufficient resources. The improved numbers are partly due to increased professionalism. Arizona Together, which led the successful effort to defeat anti-gay Proposition 107, spent $200,000 on voter research, and ultimately raised $2.1 million for their successful campaign.
Key to the Arizona victory was message discipline, which meant not allowing the anti-gay side to control the framing of the debate. While it is easy to fault leaders on our side for not emphasizing the rights of gay couples, our challenge in these ballot fights is to win votes in a particular electoral context with necessarily brief campaign messages. Educating the public about gay families is a crucial ongoing project for our statewide groups (and for each of us), but initiative campaigns must be carefully geared toward the likely voters here and now. Knowing that most Arizonans oppose same-sex marriage, Arizona Together focused its messages instead on the adverse effect the initiative's provision outlawing domestic partnerships would have on many heterosexual couples.
I myself have been a client of Lake Research Partners, the voter research firm used by Arizona Together, and I learned a lot thanks to the sophistication and experience that went into their polling design. It is expensive to hire first-rate consultants, but such research is indispensable in providing the framework for campaign messaging.
In addition to solid research and messaging, hard work made the difference. A Nov. 8 press release from Arizona Together stated, "With a coalition of more than 18,000 volunteers, outreach and education spanned the spectrum including the placement and distribution of more than 3,000 signs statewide; distribution of more than 100,000 pieces of literature through events and door knocking; tens of thousands of phone calls; one million pieces of mailed literature; and a three-week run on TV."
Several who lost their initiative fights said that their states were better organized as a result of the experience, and they might have won had they been able to reach more voters with their message. The state-by-state fight in the years ahead will take a great deal of coordination and identification of new funding sources. National GLBT and allied groups, working with the Equality Federation of statewide groups, have made a good start with grants, field organizing and training.
Fair Wisconsin stated after the election that their get-out-the-vote efforts helped defeat several anti-gay state legislators. South Dakotans Against Discrimination pointed out that, while they lost, they won 48 percent of the vote compared with the 24 percent to 33 percent shown in polls last January. Colorado's referendum to approve domestic partnerships came agonizingly close, winning 47 percent of the vote.
In the long run, the only people who can defeat us in our drive toward equality are ourselves. Claire Guthrie Gastañaga of Virginia's pro-gay Commonwealth Coalition stated, "One of our biggest obstacles in this campaign was that many thought the outcome was a foregone conclusion and were afraid or unwilling to invest themselves in this effort."
Virginians did provide the finest irony of the election. The Washington Times reported on Nov. 1 that Virginia's anti-gay amendment, designed to help Sen. George Allen's re-election bid by rousing conservative voters, appeared to be backfiring. This was because black voters, while they supported the amendment by more than 60 percent according to polls, overwhelmingly favored Allen's Democratic challenger, Jim Webb. Additionally, the Commonwealth Coalition spent nearly $1 million and gained a million "no" voters, who also broke for Webb. Thus, demonizing gay people arguably cost Republicans the Senate.
Tim Wildmon of the American Family Association crowed after the election that "only one [state] voted against traditional marriage." I wonder if Mr. Wildmon considers the higher divorce rate in the Bible Belt a part of traditional marriage. The endless hectoring by these hypocritical busybodies is like an inveterate slob criticizing someone else's personal hygiene. If the tormented closet cases and parents in denial about their own gay children were purged from the leadership of the anti-gay movement, it would virtually disappear. Our adversaries' poll numbers are declining because their position depends on defamation and self-delusion.
The Arizona victory was no thanks to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), who taped two television spots for Prop. 107. In Tennessee, Democratic Senate candidate Rep. Harold Ford Jr. joined his Republican opponent, Bob Corker, in supporting that state's anti-gay amendment. Ford also attacked the October 25 New Jersey Supreme Court decision on marriage, and boasted of having voted twice for the anti-gay federal marriage amendment. The Tennessee ballot measure won 81 percent of the vote, but Ford was defeated. How must it feel to sell your soul, only to leave empty-handed?
26 Comments for “A Watershed Election”
posted by Josh Melendez on
Richard,
It’s important to note that it wasn’t the anti-gay vote that was held to less than sixty percent, it was the anti-gay marriage vote. There were many people who voted for these amendments that are for civil unions and domestic partnerships – and many of these people didn’t know what they were voting for either. Post-2004 Election exiting polling showed that 64 percent of voters were either for gay marriage or civil unions. Add in domestic partnerships and the figure would have been a little higher. This year the figure would have been higher still. So while we may disagree a little on semantics, I agree with your positive reasoning that we live in an increasingly pro-gay America. Amen to that. And, thanks for not being a “cry-baby” liberal.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
There was no backlash to begin with — which makes the slavish support for Democratic politicians all the more foolish when examining their policy agenda of the moment, which completely excludes homosexual Americans.
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
NL, it might surprise you to know that the local candidate I worked for on Election Day was actually an independent. And not one of local-DC’s usual Democrats in independent garb, but former Republcan David Catania.
I wonder how many slavish supporters of Democratic politicians would write several articles for a Republican organization’s think tank, as I did? Ah, but that will just elicit another of your cheap “Republicrat” jibes. It starts to sound the same after a while. You might find that building a third-party alternative would work better if you were more civil, or at least more selective in hurling your insults.
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Josh, set aside the motives of voters for the moment. The anti-gay-marriage initiatives were and are demonstrably anti-gay. There would be no point in pushing such a measure in the absence of anti-gay animus. And the rhetoric against same-sex marriage effectively blames gay people for straight people’s adultery and divorces. Those pushing these initiatives do not just disagree with SSM, they are obsessed with it. Why? The only coherent explanation is anti-gay bias.
Now, back to the motives of voters. A given voter who votes for one of these measures may not be anti-gay. But his or her vote for a discriminatory amendment nonetheless has an anti-gay effect. I would probably not want to emphasize this point if I were in charge of messaging for a gay group defending against such a measure. But that is the difference between commentary and campaign management.
posted by Communique on
Hi Folks,
Can someone explain why in the world do gays really want ?
If in this country and you are allowed to live with your partner in peace in the comfort of your apartment, what else do you guys want ? Can someone explain ?
Cheers,
A regular_guy
posted by Randy R. on
Sure, Regular Guy. The problem is that we are NOT allowed to live in peace with our partners in the comfort of our apartments. In most states, if the landlord finds out we are living in peace, he can evict us, just because he doesn’t like gay people. Furthermore, our bosses can fire us when he finds out we are gay. No lawsuits can stop that. We want that changed. Follow us?
There are plenty of gay people serving in the military. But they have to be very careful about talking about themselves, because if their superiors find out, they can be discharged from the military, just for being gay. Nothing can stop that. We want that changed. Still with me?
My partner and I would love to live in peace. But the problem is what happens if he gets sick and I have to take him to the hospital. What if I don’t have papers with me proving we are partners? Guess what — I can’t make critical health care decisions on his behalf, and in some hospitals, I’m considered just a friend and can’t visit him if it’s a serious condition! And if he dies, I might get into a huge legal battle with his parents over his will, since we are not legally married. We want that changed — we want peace of mind so that we can live peacefully in our apartment. So we want to be married in the eyes of the law.
In other words, everything is hunky dory for us, unless something goes wrong in our lives. The problem is that chances are something goes wrong in everyone’s lives at one point or another. That’s why have all have certain legal protections — they are there if we should need them.
In other words, we want the exact same rights that you have –nothing more, nothing less. I don’t see why anyone would oppose these rights — they are not imposing any burdens upon straight people. Unless you can explain what those burdens may be.
posted by Richard J. Rosendall on
Another inequality, Regular Guy, is in the area of immigration rights. The foreign spouses of straight people get preferred consideration for immigration, so that families can stay together. But my foreign partner and I are considered strangers under the law, and because he is a refugee (from an African country), he cannot even get a visa to visit here. You can imagine the enormous burden and pain this causes us. One bit of golden lining to it is that it demonstrates that gay relationships are not just about sex, since it’s obviously hard to have sex when you are separated by 4,000 miles most of the time. It’s about love, and our love is just as good and worthy of respect and legal protection as anybody else’s.
posted by Ed on
One more point, Regular Guy: if my colleague at work and I were to die in an airplane crash or something while on business travel, who would get everything I’ve paid in to social security for the last 28 years? My colleague’s spouse, that’s who. My partner of 14 years would get none of it. No legal arrangements (wills, powers of attorney, etc.) we make on our own can change that.
posted by Randy R. on
Or, conversely, let’s take a look at you, Regular Guy, and ask you the same question. You live in peace with your girlfriend quietly enjoying your apartment. What need you of ANY civil rights? Why the need to get married? Why the need to be free of the fear of eviction, or termation at work? Why the need for hundreds of dollars worth of legal work for papers proving your partnership, your rights of inheritance, health care proxies, your partner’s medical insurance, the right to not have your partner incriminate you in a criminal trial (it’s the part of the Bill of Rights that applies only to married couples) and on and on.
You don’t really need any of that stuff, do you? So why should anyone ELSE have a right to it either? What more do you guys straight guys want?
posted by Tenpa on
Hi Regular Guy,
Well I guess you got the information you requested. The bottom line is that life is very complicated. Without the equalities that are granted to other citizens our lives become exponentially more complicated than yours. It is unfortunate that we have to fight for something that should be a “given”. It tires us …. it makes us weary. But the fight will never stop until the goal is achieved. We have no choice. Our lot is cast in stone until change is realized.
Our sorrow is not just for ourselves and our own pain. Our sorrow also stems from the inability of our fellow Americans to see and understand our pain. My greatest hope is that you now understand this. If you do then a little progress has been made. A “little progress” is a huge victory in my book.
Tenpa
http://www.QueerFrontier.com
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
The bottom line is actually very simple. Over the past century, the reach of the state into our personal lives has grown at unprecedented levels.
The idea that a marriage needs a “license” is absolutely staggering — even moreso when one realizes that the “tradition” (as social conservatives refer to it) was not to have government involved at all. In America, government only became involved in “licensing” marriages in order to prevent interracial marriages (which they “didn’t approve of.”)
Ever since then, we’ve been trapped in a war between people who want to live differently, and the control freaks who don’t want to “allow” them to live differently. The control freaks have created a system where they — and only they — have full liberty, and everyone else is restricted. . . either in getting their partner a right to reside in the USA, or getting health insurance in the private sector, or buying a house, or leaving property to another individual tax-free, etc.
The solution isn’t to loosen the noose around our country’s neck a little bit to allow more air in — the solution is restoring America to her tradition of personal freedom and getting the government and control freaks out of the business of “licensing” our personal relationships.
posted by Sam on
I notice that Regular Guy did not post back. It’s puzzling to me that he would ask what we want, when there are reems of information all around him, including the internet. He goes through all the trouble to come to this website but not to read anything more? I think this is either one of those odd ambiguously-self-identified-and-unaware individuals that we come across from time to time, or we are doing a heck of a lousy job in getting our message out there!
In regards to the election, I am not quite as optimistic. In this political atmosphere, where every fundie and corrupt republican has been shown the door, there should NOT have been any constitutional bans against us passed. I do see the slight progress (it could have been worse), but there were no coatails for us in this election. Clearly, Brokeback Mountain and a Democratic Party voter registration card was not enough to effect change.
What that means I think is that we need to work on the elections in-between the elections, just like the general progressive bloggers do. We need to keep the money flowing, the organization, and the message. We need to directly effect the culture. We need to front some good role models. We need to insist our successful brethren come out, to show what a gay american is capable of.
I often wonder how black americans put the vision of the black boogieman to rest. How did they get to swim in the same public swimming pools and have a right to marry white women at a time when many white voters thought black skin was dirty or could be rubbed off, and black babies have tails? The answer to this mystery may be the answer to our own civil rights struggle. But from what I can see, they never bothered to directly change these deep beliefs. They won hearts and minds in other ways, like on television, the movies, in comedy, excelling in sports, building wealth and respect. Just as crucial, they also won their important court battles.
Massachussetts was our Montgomery in a way. But instead of the government sending national guard troops to keep back the bigots from preventing us from getting marriage licenses at the courthouse, in this case they actively worked against minority rights. So we don’t have the same support. And we don’t have the advantage of being visibly gay or bisexual while publicly succeeding. Can you imagine if Howie Long or Brent Farve came out and said they are gay, they love football, and are just as much a man as their teammates, and that this is all normal? If they said, folks, relax, it’s ok, and we’re part of your family, and please do everything you can to support us because we’re going through a rough time right now? That would be fantastic. And it’s not just the event, it’s how it’s covered. Cheryl Swoops came out and it got no coverage and we had no advantage to that. It all gets swept under the rug because of the shame and fear factor. We need to work on that. Religion plays a huge part of that shame/fear thing. Black minorities didn’t have that problem, because they assimilated their masters’ religion. That was not working against them like it is against us. Well the bible is not going away, and so we need to find a workable solution to that. Just relying on a liberal attitude in any particular decade is not enough because sooner or later there will be another conservative wave. That’s why building a house of brink and not of straw is important.
I thought a rare opportunity for us was the war. Really. I mean, that’s how women got out of the kitchen and into the workforce, from WWII. Given the right press exposure, the same could happen with us. Gripping and moving images of gay men and women, fighting and dying for us, in uniform with an american flag patch sewn on the shoulder, talking about how they love their hometowns, (the same ones that discriminate against them) and their partners. Tell me that ain’t a story. Tell me that won’t change hearts and minds. But it was ignored and supressed. Where are the stories of the gay widows of 911 victims who gravitaed to the footprint of the fallen towers to grieve along with everyone else? Did you know that a gay man was one of the “let’s roll” guys aboard that flight that went down in Pennsylvania? He was a hero. But I never knew he even existed until I heard a Melissa Ethridge song.
Folks, if we do not exist, we cannot win. Keep saying that to yourself over and over. The dollars won’t even matter if they are not producing and forcing these kinds of eye-awakening results. When I give money to GLAAD, I want it to mean something, not buy me a ticket to the back of the bus, because I already have one of those.
posted by John on
Libertarianism, however fundamentally attractive it may be to all decent people, cannot provide solutions in a world in which human beings are exceeding the tolerances of the world environment on which we depend and appear to be on the verge of recreating on a grand scale the history of Easter Island. What relevance does this have to gay rights? Authorities will be needed to make decisions, that will entail hardship and it’s difficult to imagine that people will accept being told how much water they may use, for example, without thinking it proper that their neighbors’ sex lives also be controlled. Absurd, perhaps, but that’s human nature.
posted by dalea on
NEL sez: ‘The bottom line is actually very simple. Over the past century, the reach of the state into our personal lives has grown at unprecedented levels.’
Proof?
Prior to 1900 the state could compel church attendence and church contributions, MA had a state church into the 1830’s. Any mailed literature was subject to intense censorship, the Comstock laws. Property ownership was restricted primarily to white men. Women could not own property or vote. Husbands could beat wives and children with impunity. Racial segregation was common, blacks and asians were forbidden to live in certain areas, to own property, to vote and many other things. Gay people were hounded into the deepest closets.
It is only in the last century that censorship has been greatly reduced. That people of all races and genders have been able to live their lives as they found best. That marital relationships have become somewhat more egalitarian. In short, I find that liberty has made tremendous advances in the last century. And that NEL’s comment is simply ignorant and counterfactual.
Actually there is one group for whom this statement may have a grain of truth: straight white men. The state stepped into prevent men from beating wives and children. This can be seen as government intervention in a man’s husbandly duties. What this statement seems to reflect and echo is the old Dixiecrat agrument that having the federal government step in to make restaurants serve all races commonly is an example of growing governmental abuse.
In my own experience, local governments were the absolute worst at micro-managing people’s lives. The intervention of the federal government was a great advance for individual liberty.
posted by dalea on
For a few more examples.
It used to be quite common for there to be laws, local laws usually, forbiding businesses to be open on Sunday. These were called ‘blue laws’. Such laws were widespread, covering much of the country. Local governments were the usual source, and they frequently were written at the behest of churches. I can remember places where no one could conduct business during church hours on Sunday mornings. This was a great example of ‘the reach of the state into our personal lives’. Beginning in the 50’s there were legal challenges to the blue laws. At some later date, the Supreme Court finally ended them. So here is a clear example of the state being pushed out of our personal lives.
It used to be quite common for localities to ban books and movies. The old phrase was ‘banned in Boston’ which eventually became a positive advertising feature. Libraries were required to submit planned purchases to the local authorities, as were schools. School teachers were closely monitored, subjects were forbidden, and dissenters were fired. Down into the late 40’s, female teachers had to contractually agree not to marry during the school year. It was common public policy to discourage married women from working.
I personally can remember when schools banned dancing at the request of religious groups. Which included dance games and instruction.
Information about birth control could not be sent throught the mail under the Comstock laws. Margaret Sanger was jailed frequently for teaching about birth control. It is a little over 40 years ago that the Supreme Court threw out law forbidding the sale of condoms.
Anyone man born before pretty much before 1954 grew up with the specter of the draft hanging over his head. At any time he could be grabbed by the government, thrown into the military and be shipped off to fight somewhere in the world. Libertarians had a lot to do with ending this situation.
From the mid 60’s onward all of these restrictions on personal liberty have been slowly going down. So, I would say that it is really clear that the hand of the government in our personal lives has decreased over the last century. It did not increase. We are, all things considered, considerably freer in our personal lives than those who came before us.
posted by dalea on
Where are you NELibertarian? This is a direct challenge to your statement. You have not responded. Does this mean you now see that the hand of government in our personal lives has been lessened in the last century?
Or are you frantically looking for ideological talking points.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
For the record, I don’t wait breathlessly to respond to each and every post directed at me.
There is absolutely *no* question that the hand of the state has been increasing steadily in our lives for quite some time now.
Mandatory income tax laws mean that our financial affairs are now governed, regulated and reported to the state in intimate detail. Every wire transfer you make or large payment you make must now be reported to — and approved by — the federal government before it is made. If you seek to transport large amounts of money, that money must be reported to and approved by the authorities, or it will be seized.
The $75 billion-and-counting war on drugs has sapped civil liberties left and right, with dozens of people killed eveyr year by police who exercise kick-down-the-door warrants on the wrong address (the latest victim was a 92-year-old woman). These laws are used to “justify” mandatory drug testing of children, near 24-hour police surveillance of certain neighborhoods, and further restrictions on one’s financial affairs.
The “war on terror” has been used to extend the reach of government into our most private decisions. In order to fly, one must be approved by a government list as someone who is “allowed” to. (How one gets on or off the government list is, of course, a “secret.”) Travel and transport are heavily regulated by databases tied together to create a dossier on every citizen.
Every e-mail you send and telephone call you make is now intercepted and analyzed, and possibly recorded, by the US federal government.
The USA Patriot Act allows the government to detain suspects, without cause beyond “suspicion,” indefinitely.
In many localities, “family habitation laws” require individuals who aren’t “legally married” to not reside at the same address.
In many other localities, every single resident must now register with the town to “prove” he’s a legal immigrant and receive a “renters’ permit” (Hazleton, PA is a recent example of this).
The government’s REAL ID law will transform the driver’s licensing system into a mandatory form of (eventually) biometric identification linked into the central Homeland Security database.
These are just a few examples — I could go on and on and on. Most of these examples are from the past five years, with none of them being older than forty years old.
I suppose you could try and argue that such things are evidence of a shrinking government, but I wouldn’t want to put words in your mouth. 🙂
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
Authorities will be needed to make decisions, that will entail hardship and it’s difficult to imagine that people will accept being told how much water they may use, for example, without thinking it proper that their neighbors’ sex lives also be controlled. Absurd, perhaps, but that’s human nature.
I’m aware of such central planning arguments. They’ve been made for 100 years now, with central planning advocates predicting that the en-vogue “crisis” of the moment would destroy free market societies while guaranteeing the survival — and thriving — of central planning states.
Yet here we are, a century later. The “unplanned, less regulated” capitalist states are still around and doing reasonably well, despite the so-called “crises.” The centrally-planned states with central “authorities” who plan water usage, ration food, etc. — the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, North Korea, Cuba, Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, etc., etc., etc. — are all gone or on the endangered species list.
So no, we don’t need “authorities” regulating us and saving us from the latest contrived “crisis.” Free markets and innovation *always* deliver better results, and centrally planned “greater good” tyrannies *always* fail.
posted by John on
The fact that the world environment is continuing to deteriorate at an ever increasing rate is no contrived crisis. Leaving that aside, there’s a simple and well-documented case of libertarianism at work that ended in impoverishment for all involved – the New England cod industry: Government failed to intervene as the cod declined. No one fisherman had an incentive to restrain himself suspecting that his competitors would only take advantage of his scruples and the result was a race to the bottom. Now the cod have been permanently displaced and an important food source has been lost forever.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
the world environment is continuing to deteriorate at an ever increasing rate
Except that it isn’t. That’s propaganda, just like the “population bomb” and “global cooling” were.
there’s a simple and well-documented case of libertarianism at work that ended in impoverishment for all involved – the New England cod industry
You’re going to cite one of the most heavily subsidized industries in America as a version of libertarianism? Cod fishermen are paid by the government, they have their boats subsidized by the government, and they even get their berths paid for by the government.
No one fisherman had an incentive to restrain himself suspecting that his competitors would only take advantage of his scruples and the result was a race to the bottom.
Except that it was government subsidies of otherwise unsustainable operations that resulted in such a large number of fishermen to begin with. Had government not gotten involved in propping up failing fishing enterprises and subsidizing uneconomical ones with centrally-planned “investments,” there would have been no overfishing.
The cod story is yet another example of how government interference in a manufactured “crisis” (the so-called “dying fishing industry which needed public investment”) only exacerbated the problem and created a new problem. If fishing operations that had been in serious trouble had been allowed to go out of business — and new fishing boats and berths hadn’t been paid for by the federal and state governments — the overfishing situation simply would not have occurred.
The problem you’ve got, at the heart of it, is a pretty big one. You have to show a centrally-planned state approach to “managing crises” that isn’t a failure. Whether you look at 9/11 response and Katrina response, or you look at entire countries that embraced your “authorities plan your life for you” approach (such as the Soviet Union), you see nothing but failure. In fact, one is hard-pressed to find a single instance of success in your approach.
Trying to spin yet another central-planning failure as a “libertarian” failure is an interesting approach, but in order to win the debate, my view doesn’t have to be perfect — it just has to be better than yours. Any comparison of a modern capitalist state’s evolution from the 1960s to today, versus a socialist counterpart over the same era, proves that the individual liberties approach is vastly, vastly superior to yours.
posted by raj on
Northeast Libertarian | November 27, 2006, 5:29am |
>>>the world environment is continuing to deteriorate at an ever increasing rate
Except that it isn’t. That’s propaganda, just like the “population bomb” and “global cooling” were.
You aren’t seriously denying the fact of global warming, are you? Or that global warming is exacerbated by increasing levels of CO2 in the atmosphere–largely due to the burning of fossil fuels–and that global warming can also be exacerbated by increasing levels of water vapor and methane? If you are, that is merely another reason to ignore you.
I was going to fisk some of your posts above, but it would not be worth the effort if you really are so ignorant as to deny the fact of global warming.
posted by Zendo Deb on
Talk about looking at the world through rose-colored glasses… A 0.125 success rate is NOT good. Do you think the anti-gay amendment folks are trembling because they lost 1 of 8 – and don’t forget that 2 years ago then won 100% of the time that they tried – even in states that went largely Democratic in the Presidential Election.
The real problem is that our community has been trying – forever – to ram things down peoples throats via the courts for so long, we have forgotten (if we ever knew) how to fight legislative battles and win elections. In a democracy, legislation by fiat – i.e. the courts – will not work in the long-run if the majority of the people are opposed to the fiat.
It is good that we are trying to learn again how to win elections, because that is the ONLY way our rights will be secured in the long-run.
posted by Sam on
Deb I agree with you, and your concerns about the outcome of the election. I feel the same way. But the anti-gay lobby did suffer some major losses. And the Dems winning can help control the agenda. I don’t know if I agree with your conclusions about the courts, though. This is a civil rights struggle and we need to fight it through the courts as well as the individual legislative branches. The Constitution says all men are created equal, that there is a right to life, liberty and happiness, that there is a right to privacy and of equality. We all pay taxes. Separate but equal was struck down before, and it needs to be struck down again. The hallmark of a healthy democracy is protection of minority rights, not majority rights.
I’m all for hearts and minds, and for winning the cultural war. But what if Brown vs Board of Education could be overturned by some new batch of legislators? It’s not always about who was elected in the last cycle. Because we’ll lose elections in the future. The puzzle is how to hold onto rights. Massachussetts made marriage legal. Now they want to reverse it. That shouldn’t be the decision of a lawmaker or who can get the most signatures. It should be understood that these are god-given RIGHTS we’re talking about. I think the courts at least help underscore that.
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
You aren’t seriously denying the fact of global warming, are you?
The “fact” of global warming is far from established. That there’s a warming pattern caused by CO2 in the atmosphere is far from proven. In addition, many of the statistics looking at historical patterns have ignored the medieval warming period, the arable land of Greenland in Viking times, the Chinese medieval circumnavigation of the arctic (when they encountered no ice), etc.
If you are, that is merely another reason to ignore you.
Of course. Leftist fanatics, like their right-wing compatriots, must argue from a position of faith, not reason. Anyone who challenges their faith-based convictions, which lack a basis in reality, is someone to be ignored. No big deal, I’m not seeking to convert you so much as make sure that your effort to dominate the societal conversation with your “facts” is unsuccessful — presenting facts that allow people to come to their own conclusions without being intimidated by your personal attacks and condescension. 😉
posted by Northeast Libertarian on
the Dems winning can help control the agenda
Yep — we can now look forward to more anti-gay laws from Democrats, rather than anti-gay laws from Republicans.
posted by Brendan on
I don’t see the election that positively from the gay perspective, to be honest. Yes, some progress was made in terms of the initiatives, but at the end of the day for the most part the progress we are making is being done through the courts, a process which I fully support (because it’s the way the constitution is enforced), but which the populist masses find very irritating.
I actually think the presence of the initiatives on the ballots hurt the Republicans. The Republicans put them there to try to bring out their base to vote, but in reality what happened was that it allowed people to vote to punish the Republicans for the scandals and the war, while still being able to vote anti-gay. For many people, that was a no-brainer: they did not even have to weigh punishing the Republicans against the anti-gay agenda, because they could do both by voting for the Democrats and for the anti-gay ballot initiatives.
It backfired on the Republicans politically, but the reality for us is that regardless of whether they voted for the Republicans or the Democrats, most people who had the chance still voted anti-gay. That’s a pretty sobering thought, I think.