Thought it was great. Here ya go:
Proposition 8, which is in the process of becoming law, is the return of Jim Crow: the legally sanctioned classifying of non-criminal citizens as lesser, and deserving of fewer basic human rights. (if you aren't familiar with Prop 8, you can go to http://www.smartvoter.org/
This is NOT a political issue. You do not have to be a Democrat to think that Prop 8 is a bad idea; indeed, if you consider yourself a Republican because you believe government should not intrude in private affairs, you should be against Prop 8. The Libertarian Party is against Prop 8 (http://ca.lp.org/props_nov_
Prop 8 is a civil rights issue. It would not, as its supporters would have you believe, force teachers to teach same-sex marriages to kids or mandate churches perform same-sex weddings. In fact, if you stop and think for a moment, you'll realize that believing that could be true is pretty stupid. Aside from the fact that you can see from the text of the proposition (linked above) that there is precisely zero mention of schools and churches, we have freedom of religion in this country, and CA has laws allowing parents to keep their kids out of human-health classes that conflict with their religion (for some great, well-researched information on just who spread these lies, check out http://www.dailykos.com/user/
What this is is black people sitting at the back of the bus. It is Japanese-American citizens locked in internment camps. It is Stars of David sewn onto shirts. While the scope of the damage may be different, it's form is the same. It is prejudice, the opposite of empathy, and that is always bad.
But the election is over, and the good guys lost. So why send this?
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/
That's a petition you can sign, if you're a CA resident, expressing your displeasure. There will be a chance to repeal this in 2010 almost certainly - did you donate money this time? Did you volunteer? Did you phone bank or knock on a door or bother your friends? We, in progressive cities where this seems like a total non-issue, have become complacent, and that has to stop. Politicians do not take the lead on these issues; it is up to everyday people to change the mass culture's attitudes enough to make it politically viable for a brave politician to take on discrimination.
And if you do not, this will happen to you: Remember when you were in grade school and learned about slavery? How impossible it seemed that anyone, let alone millions, could have been okay with that? You may have, like I did, had brief daydreams about how if you had been there, you would have been one of the good guys - one of the people who had a house on the Underground Railroad, or who told your plantation owner parents that they had to set slaves free, or who led an uprising. These fantasies are so powerful because so rarely in life is right and wrong so clear. And in fifty years, your grandchildren will sit there having those very same thoughts about the civil rights battles of our time. What will they think about you? Three choices: That you were an ignorant bigot, that you were apathetic in the face of evil, or that you were a hero.
Please stay aware of this. Please learn about some of the in's and out's so you can initiate conversations with friends and relatives who are in thrall to the smears. Please donate money and time. And please realize, even more than you already do, that you are friends with atheists, Jews, Muslims, gays, lesbians, WASPs, eggheads, jocks, people who like installation art, people who think it's weird, the tall, the short, the black, the white, the homely and the gorgeous, and that binding all of us together through these differences is the capacity to dream. Let's not make laws that restrict that.
Yours,
Graham
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