Booniverse

“Oh, somewhere in this favored land the sun is shining bright.
The band is playing somewhere, and somewhere hearts are light.
And, somewhere men are laughing, and little children shout,

but there is no joy in Mudville —
mighty Casey has struck out.”

Taken from “Casey at the Bat” by Ernest L. Thayer

Well, in the aftermath of Tuesday and Wednesday’s political fun all I can say is that I’m profoundly sad. I’m not sad that the candidate I voted for lost, although I am sorta disappointed about that. I’m also not sad that the candidate that I was against took office (I was never really Kerry’s biggest supporter, just his biggest supporter for the fact that he was NOT Bush and had the best shot at beating the incumbent) in what was a fairly close but respectable win. That just makes me feel resigned, nervous and gives me a budding case of the dreads. No, mostly I’m sad because 11 states put proposals on the ballots for the people to vote on that clearly told a certain section of the population “we don’t think you deserve the same rights as people who are not like you”. I’m talking about the 11 proposals to define marriage as “between one man and one woman” which pretty much nixes any chance a loving lesbian couple or an adoring gay couple had of getting married. I was affronted that 11 states, including my home state, even thought that this was an issue that needed solving, but propose they did.

And all 11 states passed that proposal with flying colors.

Clearly, the majority of voters in these 11 states had no issues or regrets that they just created a law which actively discriminated against other people. That’s what it boils down to and for kicks and giggles I wonder if all you who voted “Yes please! I do not want same sexed couples to have the right to marry!” would do me a favor. Substitute “black” or “Jew” or “mixed race” or “protestant” or “poor” for “same sexed” and read it to yourself. Oh wait, I’ll just do the hard part for you…here you go.
Hi there! I just voted to pass this law because I do not want same sexedblack couples to have the right to marry!

Hi there! I just voted to pass this law because I do not want same sexedJewish couples to have the right to marry!

Hi there! I just voted to pass this law because I do not want same sexedpoor couples to have the right to marry!

Honestly, do you see anything wrong with those three sentences? Does it make you feel any sort of uncomfortable inside to say that you think black couples shouldn’t have the right to marry? Does it sit fine with you to stand up and proudly say that you support banning people of a certain income level from getting married? I wonder because a lot of you actively went to the polls and enthusiastically decided that gays don’t get certain rights (alright, I’m totally assuming here that I’m not talking to any gays or lesbians who voted yes to the ban). Hell, my home state ALREADY had a law on the books that said a man and a man or a woman and a woman can not be married yet 2,685,892 of you (59% of the voters) went to the polls just to tell those men and men and women and women again that they still can’t be married.

There are only two reasons to keep gays from marrying: You either feel some sort of strong negative emotion towards homosexuals or your religion or faith tells you that homosexuality is wrong. It all boils down either choice, no matter what your reasoning and yes, even THAT reason fits under the first or the second option. Go ahead. Sit yourself down and ask yourself WHY you care so much about forbidding gays to marry. Why does it even matter to you if Bob and AL go off and get hitched? Me thinks the reasoning for voting Yes Please! Ban them! smacks mightily of some good ol’ deescrimination or mixing of church and state and that’s why I am very sad.

I don’t have much to say to you people who vote with your anger, hate and fear. Y’all give me mental hives with your intolerance but I’m certain this issue can be worked out just like the issues women faced and the issues blacks faced. I’m just hoping that you all are a tiny portion of the multitudes who voted Sure! Ban ’em! If not, I’m going to have to revise my image of America and populate it with a bunch of people I’m personally ashamed to share the nation with. HIVES! Gah.

You church and state people, all I have to say is for shame! You know that church politics and government politics shouldn’t mix and yet, you’ve gone and done just that. ARRRRRGH! Alright, here’s the gig. Your God says “NO WAY!” and I don’t agree with that at all but I respect that you have that belief. In return, I expect that you respect my belief in a God who is more tolerant on this issue and doesn’t much give a rip if gay couples want to marry or not. That’s why we don’t mix church and state in this nation; my church believes differently from your church and no one is going to be happy if one church or the other starts dictating laws for everybody. But no, I suspect a lot of you out there voted with your faith rather than as a citizen of a multi racial, cultural and religion based country. I’m sad that you couldn’t step away from your beliefs enough to think to yourself “Why am I so against this?”

As one of my coworkers said ‘I think it’s wrong, but I also don’t think that I have the right to decide this issue for everybody based on my religious beliefs.” Yay coworker! To the rest of you who could not separate yourself from your church doctrine, here’s an idea: If you are that against gays marrying, then don’t marry them in your church. Let gays have their civil service and be happy that in the eyes of your God they are not united. That seems pretty fair to me but I was clearly in the minority on this. Is my America moving closer to a theocracy? Whose theocracy? Which set of rules do I look up because there are a TON of different religions out there. Catholic, Lutheran, Baptist, Jehovah’s Witness, Seventh Day Adventist, Mennonite, Methodist, Mormon, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Hindu, Buddist…that’s what I come up with off the top of my head.

Right, I’m going to go mope a bit because my image of a righteous and good America has been sorely shattered. After that, I think I’m going to get angry and go find out how to kick my country in the nads and make it realize it’s not going in a healthy direction.

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Last year at the booniverse: I’m just not fast enough in my head to spell out Q…U… before my hand begins impatiently making bumpity-bumps waiting for me to get to the rest of the name.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 4th, 2004 at 11:50 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.