Rachel’s Musings

When I left for my class last night, McCain was winning due to the odd fact that only two states had reported their results: Kentucky & Vermont. I had a blast reviewing the folk dances I had learned and got home slightly before 8 PST. I rushed to the TV & turned it on just to find some sort of banter going on. I closed curtains and got ready to settle in for a long night of “too close to call,” when my eyes fell on the clock - 7:59 - and then on the TV screen, which displayed a picture of Barack Obama with the words “44th President of the United States of America.” What?!? Could this be? And then the announcement came, reaffirming that the presidential election was over and we have taken back America! Amazing! I did not expect such great news so early in the evening! Way to go, East coast!

The only dampening of my joy came from the Prop 8 results: California now has an amendment to our constitution that defines marriage as only between a man and a woman. We are not the 30th state to do something like that - and 5 million people saw it fit to impose that restriction, and their religious values, on the rest of the state! The Proposition passed by about 400,000 votes! How easy it is to enshrine injustice and discrimination into a constitution. Disgusting.

So, while I am excited about the Obama/Biden team moving into the White House to restore the US, starting with our reputation, I am reminded by the Prop 8 results that bigotry and double-standards are still alive and well in this country, at least when they’re directed toward the LGBT community.

From a press release from Atheists United:

The board of Atheists United unanimously passed a resolution in opposition to the California Attorney General’s proposed constitutional amendment titled “Limit on Marriage:”

WHEREAS, the California Supreme Court has ruled that “the right to marry is not properly viewed simply as a benefit or privilege that a government may establish or abolish as it sees fit, but rather that the right constitutes a basic civil or human right of all people” (In re Marriage Cases S147999, May 15, 2008, footnote 41),
WHEREAS, a proposed constitutional amendment to limit marriage, will be on the November 4, 2008 General Election Ballot in California stating “Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid or recognized in California,”
WHEREAS, such a limit on the right to marry is based on religious belief, not on the reasonable interests of the state, and therefore is an effrontery to the separation of government from religion,
THEREFORE, Atheists United declares its opposition to this ballot measure and urges other organizations and individuals to oppose the measure and to vote against it.

Please visit our website to find out more information and to join us in our mission to keep government separate from religion. For more information on secular issues in this year’s election, please see the Election Resources website from the Secular Coalition for America.

I don’t recall from what email list I received the hint to an article in Salon magazine. I am sure grateful to whoever forwarded it.

The article is in the “dear Abby” style from Cary Tennis. A somewhat distraught and stressed doctoral candidate is being pressured by her boyfriend of 10-months to tie the knot. He doesn’t feel quite right to her but she thinks since she’s been running away from other boyfriends, maybe it’s time to change that behavior. Should she accept his offer or flee?

The answer is just great, imo. Here is Cary’s call to embrace being single:      Continue reading this post » » »

I just sent the Obama campaign the following note:

Did you know that the support from women for Obama is about 14-percentage points higher than that from men? Probably. Everybody is keenly aware of the gender gap. But did you know that the martial status gap is more than twice that gap? That’s right! Unmarried folks support Obama by a whopping 34-percentage points more than married folks. In fact, the marrieds prefer McCain. Yet, I am not hearing anything from the campaign that shows your support of this large and growing segment of the U.S. population. For more background and some ideas, please also see this post.

I look forward to hearing Barack Obama reaching out to the single and unmarried people!

I am afraid that the only result of this message will be that I’ll end up on their emailing list again. But maybe, just maybe, someone sees these numbers and realize that there is huge potential!

It might surprise you that I would ask people living in California to vote No on Prop 8. After all, I don’t exactly support marriage. And I think that fighting for marriage equality is the wrong approach. Yet, it is very important to defeat attempts of the religious wrong to get their religious nonsense into a state constitution. It doesn’t belong there no matter what I think of marriage. Plus a religiously motivated amendment threatens the separation of state and religion.

So, I support the No on Prop 8 campaigns as a secular humanist even though I’d argue with anyone - gay or straight - to try to convince them that marriage is the wrong answer. But before I can do that everybody needs to have the right to make that choice.

Here’s a good YouTube clip that summarizes the reasons for opposing Prop 8. (Hat tip to Dan.)

In addition to voting against Prop 8, please also show your support either by donating or by volunteering and by spreading the word. (Incidentally, the later is linking the Equality California and the Equality for All campaigns…)

Now after the election, let’s stand up for the real all and make sure that these organizations realize that fighting for marriage equality can be the wrong approach.

As I’ve pointed out before, there are lots of reasons to vote, actually I can’t really think of any reasons not to vote if you think democracy is a good idea. Edward Tabash eloquently argued that another reason sits on the Supreme Court: One of the justices is 88 years old! Now, you don’t have to be an actuary to figure out that his putting off retirement might be undermined by a biological process… Okay, so what, you might say, the next President will appoint someone to the Supreme Court. That’s been the fear-mongering of the left for a long time to get people to vote. True enough. But right now there are 4 out of 9 justices who have demonstrated that their religious beliefs influence their decisions. And these beliefs are pretty right-wing. Add to that a new appointment influenced by the religious wrong and you’ll have 5 out of 9 - a majority who could, if they had the opportunity, overrule Roe v Wade, the ban of creationism from science class, roll back even further LGBT rights, etc etc. Just watch this to get an idea… Separation of state and religion would clearly be violated by the highest court in our country. And there’s only one way to stop that: By a part of the electorate that is as active as the religious wrong when it comes to going to the polls but can counter-act their imposition of religion on all of us. So, if you care at all about the country you live in: Vote!