Pride and Prejudice
Last night, the people (or at least, 64 million of us) spoke–and sent the world a message: America is ready for change. We are ready for progress. Shoot, we’re even ready for a new-and-improved national rhetoric. We want to be hopers, dreamers, teammates, idealists, rational thinkers, good-doers, try-harders, beacons-of-light, wealth-spreaders, planet-huggers, lovers, achievers, Americans. We want this country to reflect opportunity, equality, multiple perspectives, varied backgrounds, different choices, and forward thinking. We want to salute a “President Barack Obama.” Wow. What a mouthful.
Especially when you consider that in that same confusing breath, millions of Californians expressed the desire to discriminate against citizens, deny them fundamental rights, and regress to the mindset that unfair, unequal treatment of gays (at least we’re not being racist!) is perfectly acceptable. At last count (and we should still keep the faith, because roughly three million votes still need to be counted), the decision to pass Proposition 8 in California was leading at 52%, and if the numbers stick, gay marriage will be banned in the state–meanwhile, leaving the validity of legal unions performed over the last six months up to the courts.
So this is what it’s like to feel proud to be an American again. And at the very same time, I am supremely filled with shame as a Californian. If we’re going to be part of the Obama-era of a better mankind, this state sure as hell needs to get its “kind”ness shit together.
Filed under: Bad Choices, California We Have A Problem, Discrimination Laws, Good Day/Bad Day, President Barack Obama, Pride, Proposition 8, Regressing, Same-Sex Marriage, Shame
