The View From Kalamazoo

I have made a point of avoiding the TV, internet news sites, and blogs of a political nature this morning. Call it a sanity-saving measure, if you will.

I have been trying to refrain from shooting my mouth off about all of this, too, but it appears I am going to be unsuccessful on that count. It’s time to stop reading if you don’t want to hear it – and no, this doesn’t mean I’m making a habit of it, either.

Personally, I think Bush is the least of our worries.

Let me clarify that before you snarf your java.

Prop 2 passed in Michigan, to my disappointment but not to my surprise. (for all those playing along at home: constitutional amendment defining marriage as only between a man and a woman, and not only marriage but any other sort of union or legal designation “for any purpose,” which opens doors wide for all sorts of things beyond ‘marriage’ to be screwed with, including existing same-sex benefits in the private sector, het. common-law relationships, etc.) Similar props passed in something like 10 other states, and a handful had passed previous to this election.

The deep undertow undercurrent in the U.S. that worked to pass these props is what elected Bush. Polling indicated that the issues most often cited by voters were moral values, defense, and the economy. Moral values??!!?? What year is it, again? We’ve watched the country turn more and more into a nation of Evangelical Christians/EC values. What we have is more closely resembling the pseudo-theocracies seen during the war years of the 20th century through the early 60s than the years after that we should be building on as our modern foundation – but it’s a helluva lot more than Bush. He’s a symptom, not a cause in and of himself.

In 4 years Bush won’t be a possibility (and neither will Cheney) but unless this undercurrent and what’s feeding it is addressed he’ll just be replaced by another just like him – so again, I think Bush is the least of our worries – he’s merely a tributary of a much larger river feeding him…we need to spend less energy and resources trying to dam the tributary and more focusing on that river that can easily turn into a flood. You know how water flows – dam one and another will spring in its place. What we need is a sort of Hoover dam that will help to control, even redirect, that river.

And that Prop 2 stuff? The freedom to marry (and “marriage” aside, we’re talking here about any legal status at all) has long been recognized as one of the vital personal rights essential to the orderly pursuit of happiness by free men, yet anti-gay rhetoric has been popular with both Repubs. and Dems. this season: in Oregon, for example, another state that passed a similar prop, Kerry won with 53% over Bush’s 46%, yet it passed 57% to 43%. Numbers here in Michigan, another Kerry win (51% to 47%), are similar: 58% to 41%.

The argument against? Religion

Forty years ago it was illegal to marry someone of another race.

The argument against? Religion

The Lovings were convicted of violating 20-58 of the Virginia Code: “Leaving State to evade law: If any white person and colored person shall go out of this State, for the purpose of being married, and with the intention of returning, and be married out of it, and afterwards return to and reside in it, cohabiting as man and wife, they shall be punished as provided in 20-59, and the marriage shall be governed by the same law as if it had been solemnized in this State. The fact of their cohabitation here as man and wife shall be evidence of their marriage.” “Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, malay and red, and he placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with his arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that he separated the races shows that he did not intend for the races to mix.”

(And that’s all I have to say about that.)

[crossposted, in part, in my lj, FWIW]