The First Volleys in
the Cultural War
| Thirty
million people
(glbt) can swing the next election. Is there any doubt left as
to whether or not we should act in concert to oust GW Bush, now
that he has joined the anti-gay movement so openly? |
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Dubya
speaks...
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"I believe marriage is between
a man and a woman," Bush said Wednesday. "And I think we ought to
codify that one way or another. And we've got lawyers looking at the
best way to do that." |
The Pope
Bill Frist
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What's really going
on here is that the right-wing, fundamentalist conservatives are coming
out of the hate closet, now that they think it's safe, now that they
think ultra right-wing conservatism is on the move toward becoming the
majority. It used to be "the silent majority" remember? Now it's
the "majority" that won't shut up. You hear Sean Hannity whining about
it, Rush Limbaugh bombasting about it, Bill O'reilly being all
Catholic about it, and that really weird Pope pushing his papal ass
into American politics—all over the notion that gays and lesbians might
one day be able to marry. These people have been waiting years to come
out of the closet and take us back a couple of centuries. They're
gearing up to introduce a Constitutional amendment to codify their
hatred of us.
So
what are we going to to about it? Are we going to bicker our way
through this—and LOSE? Are we going to allow ourselves to be locked out
of our citizenship in so permanent a way as to have it codified into
the Constitution?
The
glbt
population can hand the 2004 presidential election to someone other
than George Bush—just as we damn-near handed the popular vote to him in
2000 by withdrawing our support of Al Gore in favor of that
spoiler, Ralph Nader. I've not forgotten that. It was the Ross Perot
syndrome all over again, this time spoiling the election for an
encumbant Democrat. But even with the spoiler garnering votes from
Gore, George Bush was almost defeated, had it not been for an
unexpectedly flawed voting system in Florida.
Will
the glbt population be even as coherent as it was in 2000? Yes,
there is a spate of Democratic candidates, but come November of 2004
there will be only one Democratic candidate and one Republican
candidate, and for my money, I'll hold my nose if I have to and pull an
all Democratic lever.
This
time.
Why?
I'm
not even a Democrat. Never have been. Nor am I a Republican. Never
would be. I'm one of those fence-sitting, cantankerous, poll-spoiling
Independents and I intend to make this a one-issue election for myself.
If a candidate for senate, house, governor, president looks likely to
vote to codify marriage as between only a man and woman into the
Constitution, I'm going to vote against him or her. I will not care if
in every other way, he or she is the better candidate on other issues.
I believe we're that close to losing big-time, after all these years of
incremental wins. And once our rights are abridged in the Constitution
itself, we'll not have another chance in our lifetimes to make any more
gains in the courts or at the ballot box.
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