Longer post on election

The title might be a misnomer as my post from last night/way too early this morning says much of what ill say here http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.ListAll&friendID=5994847

So obviously, unless you live under a rock, Obama won.  I am obviously happy about this.  I have lost sleep with the idea that McCain might pull it off (and I realize that I said I thought McCain would win.  I was wrong, and glad.).  Even scarier was the fact that Palin might be there, whos batshit crazy (not going to go into details, again stop living under a rock.)

I personally have a hard time understanding how people can listen to McCain speak and Obama speak, and not feel something inspiring from Obama and bored of McCain.  That being said, McCain's concession speach was nice and im glad that you is trying to bring everyone together, however you can tell from the audience that they were not happy.  South Park had a great episode tonight about the election and Obama winning, and it cracks me up that they show the McCain supporters as going overboard.  Obama's speech was great, like all of his and you can see why he won.  He has a brain.  

Thats not to say that McCain isn't smart in some areas, but in overall intelligence I know a lot of people (and I include myself in this group) think that McCain isn't overall that bright.  Obama on the other hand I find myself thinking "Damn, that guy is much smarter than me."  It helps that when electing a president, people should go "Do I want someone smarter than me to run the country?  Yes Obama, No McCain."  Sadly, that implies a lot of stupid people out there.  Still, on the President the majority won (though still not as big of a majority as it perhaps should have been, again going back to the large amount of people who just don't get it.)

Speaking of that, and ill try to keep this short but I feel I have to rant on it more today (especially since im more coherent as it was really late when I wrote my myspace thing) but Prop 8 passed and had that failed I would have literally been jumping in the streets.  Instead, though happy that Obama won I still feel a great sense of loss and im not even one that is directly affected by this (it does not affect that I could get married as I am not gay.)  I can't imagine how those who are gay and lesbians feel.  It saddens me that as far as we have come, that even less than 100 years ago blacks did not have the same rights as whites, we still have bigotry and stupidity running around.  

We made great progress electing the first African-American to the President of the United States, who has (and still continues to deal with) long history of racism.  We have overcome a lot of the racism and sexism in this country, one of the last battlefields is same-sex rights and immigration (which sat a majority of this one out as McCain never really had a firm position on it and as far as I know there was no real legislation regarding illegal immigration or otherwise).  

Luckily, times are changing though slowly.  In the exit polls, those who were 18-29 years old voted yes on Prop 8 to eliminate same-sex marriages 37%.  The next group up, which I believe was 30-59 was like 54, then 60-79 (the ages get fuzzy if im exactly correct but you get the idea) was like 61% (I can't find the exact figures after the first two ranges, but again you get the idea).  This tells me that as time goes on, people stop being ignorant and being afraid of the gay that this shit, like racism and sexism will start falling to the side and we can move on.  

This gives me some hope.  It also tells me that I should have pushed this.  I should have donated some money (im not rolling around in money right now but I think I could have sacrificed a few bucks for something this important) and maybe even volunteered.  I, like probably many, figured this probably would not pass.  I unfortunately sat on my ass and did nothing but vote and bitch that the thing shouldn't be on the ballot.  Sadly, in the last couple weeks I have seen many, many idiots (sorry, but they are) standing on the side of the road with Yes for 8 signs, usually with their kids.  Sadly brainwashed they were, most of them I am sure didn't understand what it really means as they were sold the bs line that it somehow was going to protect marriage.  Sorry, its that people are afraid of the gay and want to make it go away.  And they figure that if they try to stand in the way, with their crosses and bullshit that people will stop caring and they will win.  

They won't.  Like Obama said referring to things in general, there will be setbacks but we will move on.  And I fully believe that even though it may time time, possibly many years (at least a couple till the next real election), this shit will die.  People will stop being morons and realize that its not a vote of "Protecting marriage" or "allowing gays to marry."  Its really "being a bigot ass and stopping someone from having the same rights as we have" or "Allowing gays to marry."  

One thing that I recently read was great and I think should have been used more on the No on 8 (which I rarely saw signs for that, and usually it was home made signs, not the pretty printed ones that the churches bought the Yes people).  Think of it this way, if you replaced same-sex with blacks, would you consider it a racist statement.  "Eliminate the right for blacks to get married."  Or jews.  "Eliminate the right for jews to get married."  "Eliminate the right for atheists to get married."  "Eliminate the right for people to get married."  

Im sorry but none of those work.  We would not consider (for the most part, there are some really, really stupid people left but still) putting any of those on the ballot.  If people even really tried, they would be called racist and bigots.  However, some reason, its ok to put gay.  Why?  WTF?  Seriously, voting Yes on 8 thats what you did.  I know at least one (and im sure several, but in a lot of ways I kind of don't want to know cause as much as I should realize that people are a product of their upbringing, still I would have an issue with it) that I know that voted yes cause he claimed that kids would be forced (and supposedly already have, though I have never seen an actual news story to confirm it) to watch a lesbian wedding.  One, I doubt that as if there is a field trip for kids, parents usually have to approve.  Two, even if that were possible or happened, they are wrong to force kids or anyone to do anything against their will.  And three, never mind the first two, so what.  Sorry, hate to tell you this, gays exist.  This law doesn't change that.  Just makes us realize that we are still way behind other countries (Including Spain which is highly religious btw and still allows gays to get married.  There are of course other countries that allow it as well).  

Heres the current list of countries that allow same-sex marriage.  This may not be all of them.

• The Netherlands/Holland, 2001.
• Belgium, 2003.
• Massachusetts, USA, 2004.
• Canada, 2005.
• Spain, 2005.
• South Africa, 2006.
• Norway, 2009.

Heres a list of places that allow same-sex registered parnerships/ civil unions or at least provide some form of spousal rights for same sex couples.

• Denmark, 1989.
• Norway, 1993.
• Sweden, 1996.
• Iceland, 1996.
• France, 1999.
• Vermont, USA, 2000.
• Germany, 2001.
• Finland, 2002.
• Luxembourg, 2004.
• New Zealand, 2004.
• Connecticut, USA, 2005.
• Britain, 2005.
• New Jersey, USA, 2006.
• New Hampshire, USA, 2008.
• Oregon, USA, 2008.
• Maine, USA.
• California, USA.
• Washington, USA.
• Hawaii, USA.

I realize that its not a huge list, but its got some pretty big names in there.  Some extra interesting info is heres the list of countries that are int he Human Devlopment Index, which is a thing that basically rates literacy, life expetancy, GDP among many other things.  It basically shows how good a country it is.  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_Development_Index

1.  Iceland

2. Norway

3. Australia

4. Canada

5. Ireland

6. Sweden

7. Switzerland

8. Japan

9. Netherlands

10. France

11. Finland

12. United States

13. Spain

17. UK

19. New Zealand

Yes we are 12.  Personally, I think we could be 1 if we got our heads out of our asses.  And its not even a competition but still, I would like to see us a bit higher.  Not sure why I brought this up, other than to show that the US is behind in many ways.  Btw in 2006 we were 8th.  

Even another friend of mine didn't see the big deal.  He brought up the argument that perhaps people didn't want to change things cause its tradition.  See my above concept of replacing it with blacks or jews to see that this is wrong regardless if it were tradition or not.  In fact, I don't know a singular secular reason why to deny same-sex couples.  Oh wait, thats right there isn't any (other than to ban marriage for everyone, which isn't what im talking about).

In closing, if you voted No on 8 you did good.  You voted.  If you voted Yes on 8.  You suck, and most likely an idiot, ignorant of reality, more than likely religious and you epic fail.  But I give you props, you voted which is good (yes, even ill say that its good these people voted.  I just wish they voted with brains instead of bibles).  For those that didn't vote but had an opinion on this, you suck as well.  On both sides.  

And for those of us that voted No and thats really all we did other than speak out against 8, ill even say it.  We failed.  We need to next time, and yes believe me there will be a next time, need to do a little more.  Offer a few bucks, offer some of your time to do phone calls, hold signs, if nothing else go out and talk to people and inform them of whats going on.  Cause I do believe thats why Yes won.  They far outnumbered the No, and the majority of people will follow the loud and not necessarily the right choice.  However, in defense of the No campaign, when you have just about every church funding anything, it has a much higher chance of winning.  

After reading most of this, I realize that I did not get too polemic.  I think I got some of that out last night.  Just remember, for those that are saddened this passed, remember next time to get out and do more (and that includes me as well).  For those that are happy that 8 passed, fuck you.  Yep, I said it.  Theres that anger.  But I commend you on at least one thing.  YOu have renewed me again for my fight against stupidity, in however form it rears its ugly head.  So for that at least, I thank you.