The Argument Against CA Prop 8
I could vote NO on Proposition 8 because I have gay friends and relatives who would want me to. I could vote NO on Proposition 8 because I don’t care that much if gay people get married because it doesn’t really affect me directly. But those reasons are the weak side of the argument.
Most of the Prop 8 supporters that I know want to see gay marriage overturned because they are opposed on religious grounds. Gay marriage makes them uncomfortable. According to the Bible, they say, it’s wrong. One friend actually whipped out the “next they’ll be marrying horses and dogs” argument. She’s intelligent. I was pretty shocked.
The NO on Prop 8 campaign today announced that the secret $1 million donor to Prop 8 has been revealed: Alan Ashton, of Lindon, Utah. According to the Deseret News, Ashton is a Mormon and grandson of David O. McKay, President of the Mormon Church from 1951-1970. Ashton made his fortune in software.
The major force behind the proposition is church groups. No real surprise there except that our state, our country, has as a fundamental tenet: freedoms shall not be limited by a tyranny of the majority. John Stuart Mills famous essay, “On Liberty,” argues that:
Like other tyrannies, the tyranny of the majority was at first, and is still vulgarly, held in dread, chiefly as operating through the acts of the public authorities. But reflecting persons perceived that when society is itself the tyrant — society collectively over the separate individuals who compose it — its means of tyrannizing are not restricted to the acts which it may do by the hands of its political functionaries. Society can and does execute its own mandates; and if it issues wrong mandates instead of right, or any mandates at all in things with which it ought not to meddle, it practices a social tyranny more formidable than many kinds of political oppression, since, though not usually upheld by such extreme penalties, it leaves fewer means of escape, penetrating much more deeply into the details of life, and enslaving the soul itself. Protection, therefore, against the tyranny of the magistrate is not enough; there needs protection also against the tyranny of the prevailing opinion and feeling, against the tendency of society to impose, by other means than civil penalties, its own ideas and practices as rules of conduct on those who dissent from them; to fetter the development and, if possible, prevent the formation of any individuality not in harmony with its ways, and compel all characters to fashion themselves upon the model of its own.
In fewer words, it’s wrong to allow the majority to dictate their morality onto others when the majority suffers no injury from the minority. Don’t take away liberty just to assuage your own discomfort with people who are different from you!
The line between church and state is functional and appropriately drawn in this argument. If your church chooses NOT to sanctify gay marriage, great. That’s a religious choice. But if the state discriminates against gay marriage on religious grounds, something’s gone very wrong. The California Supreme Court ruled in favor of gay marriage for the right reasons. The law recognizes the needs and fundamental LEGAL rights of these individuals to enter into a binding contract known as “marriage.” For financial reasons. To own joint property. For medical benefits, and death benefits, and parental rights, and for all the reasons that straight people get legally married.
If your only argument against gay marriage is religious, it’s time to admit you’re making a mistake. On election day, do the right thing for other human beings who deserve the same legal rights as you. Vote NO on Prop 8.
The Upside of the Economic Downturn
Anyone who’s still got shares in a 401K or, holy mackerel, a stock portfolio, is feeling like a battered bronco rider. Up! Down! Up! Down! Yikes! I am in California, in Silicon Valley, and we are just now starting to feel the belt-tightening. Talk of lay-offs is spreading. Life is feeling a little ominous right now. There’s a dark cloud on the horizon.
But, hey, to really take a trite analogy too far, we need the rain. An economic downturn will be painful, but it will also realign some of the values that lead to the craziness in the first place. Around here, there really was another gold rush, the dot com boom, and it stretched pretty far into the present. The myth lived on. Workers in Silicon Valley still believed in the IPO and the get-rich-quick buyouts that piled money onto small company founders. The myth was a reality until very recently, though the numbers of people cashing out was shrinking every year. I don’t like to see the entrepreneurship and the optimism go south because it’s the reason everyone in the world wants to live here (well, that and the weather!). But I welcome a return to more sensible living. Less Humvee, more Prius, you know? Friends and community and gardens will be all the rage. Dads and moms might make it home for dinner.
Here is a list of the things I WILL NOT MISS:
- The cell-phone hubris, loud talking arses bellowing out their self-importance in public areas.
- Twenty-four year old guys driving Lamborghinis.
- The children in my daughters’ classes saying, “We are SO RICH.” (Really, they say it.)
- Trophy wives who are pissed at the weekend nanny. “I had to cut my work-out short!”
Who wouldn’t love to be fabulously wealthy for a couple of years’ worth of hard work? Who wouldn’t love to retire at thirty-two? I don’t want to sound like the bitter un-rich. Money’s great. Lots of money is even more great. But living a humble life has a simplicity and a respectability I can appreciate. It feels more in line with what nature intended even if it means fewer toys and plane flights.
If we command our wealth, we shall be rich and free; if our wealth commands us, we are poor indeed. ~Edmund Burke
Bretton Woods II
From “Madame La Farge”, a new guest poster from New Hampshire!! Welcome Madame La Farge!
An excellent article was buried in the Weekend Journal yesterday, A 21ST CENTURY BRETTON WOODS. The second upcoming United Nations Monetary and Finance Conference is to be held in here in New Hampshire on Nov 15th at the Mount Washington Hotel. The first Bretton Woods meeting in1944 saw the creation of the IMF and the World Bank which were intended to stabilize the world’s many different currencies and the attending fixed exchange rates. The United States adhered to the gold standard with the rest of the world’s currencies based on the USA dollar.
The [1944] conference rebuilt the economic order by creating a system of fixed exchange rates. The aim was to prevent a return to the competitive devaluations best illustrated by the “butter wars.” In 1930 New Zealand secured a cost advantage for its butter exports by devaluing its money; Denmark, its main butter rival, responded with its own devaluation in 1931; the two nations proceeded to chase each other down with progressively more drastic devaluations.
This beggar-thy-neighbor behavior added to the protectionism that brought the world to ruin, and the Bretton Woods answer was simple. In the postwar era, the dollar would be anchored to gold, and other currencies would be anchored to the dollar: No more fluctuating money, ergo no competitive devaluation.
The brilliant essay by devilstower of DAILYKOS, points out the clear objective of this year’s meeting being urged forward by France ’s Sarkozy and Britain’s Gordon Brown. The purpose is to persuade China, which currently has a $2T reserve in foreign currencies in the IMF, to take the reins from the United States in exchange for an expanded role in the IMF.
We knew the fall had to come. The US has carried the day since WWII. Unfortunately, it has led to incredible arrogance and isolation, culminating in the current administration. It has been a progression given huge directional impetus by Nixon. Today, it is regrettable, in the face of the tremendous downfall of the entire world markets, that we, the American people, allowed this to happen. I suppose it will take some time for all of us to realize that the baton has been passed. Just as the UK passed it to the USA in 1944.
Sums It Right Up!
Brilliant video for the pro-Obama camp. Only 9 days to election! GO OBAMA!! Don’t let that door hit ya on the WAY OUT Mr. Bush!
Thanks Andrew Sullivan at the AWESOME Daily Dish.
Dear Religious Right: It’s My God, Too
I am positively ecstatic about the shift in the cultural tide, away from the stifling narrowness of the neoconservatives. We’re moving towards a more liberal agenda and policies, but we’re also seeing a long-needed resurgence of traditional conservatism with its fiscal restraint and hope for smaller government. While Sarah Palin managed to “energize the base” (whose “base”? “Base” of what exactly?), the backlash has been energizing for the rest of us.
Colin Powell stepped up in support of American Muslims and Jon Stewart led the smackdown on Palin and McCain’s “real America” claims. We’re getting closer, but we’re not there yet. Obama needs to get elected, conservatives need to put forth substantive candidates who don’t pander to the religious right, and the rest of us need to continue to reclaim our country, and especially, our God.
I am not a born-again Christian. Technically, I’m not even a Christian. Neither am I an agnostic. I believe there is most definitely a “God” though I am of the belief that we as humans are too simple to even begin to comprehend the depth and breadth of what God is. I believe we have a sense of God, a palpable sense that we define for ourselves. This definition takes the form of many religions and views. The sooner we come to understand that it’s the same God we all feel, the better, more humble, less punitive, and certainly more tolerant we’ll become.
While I espouse tolerance, I tread the fine line that many of us struggle with: I have no tolerance for zealots. I can’t stand abortion clinic bombers, nor can I bear Jewish or Islamic extremists who sow intolerance and promote war. One thing my palpable feeling of God taught me is that violence is not the answer.
The religious right in this country offends me because, like many religions, they claim to have exclusive 
rights to God. That smug, narrow-minded, ignorant thinking, that Sarah Palin arrogance, has no place in American politics, no place in this country where diversity and religious freedom are two of our greatest accomplishments.
If the World Could Vote, They’d Elect Obama in a LANDSLIDE
I love the Internet. There just so much cool stuff out there. Well, at least now that more websites have come online, cause you know it just wasn’t that long ago that you couldn’t surf very far or very long without running into porn.
Here’s a very cool site called If the World Could Vote where Internet users from all over the world vote for US presidential candidates. The numbers are staggering in support of Obama. When you realize how much of the future of the world is riding on this election, the mudslinging dis-information campaign about Obama as a Muslim terrorist goes beyond absurd. It reaches the level of globally offensive. (I think I’ll coin that term right here: GLOBALLY OFFENSIVE!) And I call bullsh*t on the latest AP Poll that supposedly shows Obama and McCain in a very tight race. I am hoping and praying that sanity prevails. Do we need to pass a Constitutional Amendment right now that counts only half a vote for people who are obviously REALLY STUPID?!
Being the person who practices impartiality and tolerance for all people, I draw the line at that select voter, the willful ignoramus. This quote is from the comments section of a lengthy post by a Christian Republican outlining the verifiable perpetrators of the Obama-as-Muslim rumors:
Read your Quaran- honey.
A Muslim is a Muslim is a Muslim.
If they “say” they are a Christian- they will die,
BUT- If they “lie- for a greater purpose” they are exhonerated. (All those virgins and stuff LOL)
What greater “lie” has Obama told- than by trying to steal (ACORN) the presidency???
Do you know Google?
The ideologues have a problem with the truth!
YOU CAN’T HANDLE the TRUTH!
~CoolPillow
Clearly this guy needs the cool pillow for his hot head. It’s not a good thing when someone can be presented with facts and research but continue to espouse an angry untruth. And, as many have pointed out, what if Obama was actually a Muslim? This would not make him a bad person! It’s really the practice of calling him “an other”, an alien, and I can only guess, substitutes for calling him race-based epithets.
If anyone wants to fund that Constitutional Amendment, I’ll promote it right here!
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