Articles and Political Ramblings

In the interest of fair play, I have come across two different articles in these post-election days.

The first was sent to me by my old roommate Dimitri. I have to give warning to would be readers, this article is a bit abrasive. It's a riot and on point in places but it's title alone should give you warning, so here you go, Fuck the South.

The second article was sent by the oft mentioned John F. in Indy. Usually I mention him in pre-warning about a nasty comment that I believe to be forthcoming. John and I have made a lifetime of arguing politics. It's probably lucky for the retention of our friendship that we haven't been around each other during this last election. Nonetheless, John sent me this article and I present it here in the interest of fair play.

I have had several friendly conversations with fellow Blue voters over where this election went wrong. The easiest answer is that the republican national committee and Bush's re-election campaign simply outmaneuvered the democrats. It would be easy to say that the republicans used dirty tactics and ran a dirty campaign, but both camps are guilty there. Bush and Kerry both insinuated that voting for the other would bring more terrorist attacks. The republican campaign, however, went after the gays.

I could spout off for endless pages here about how ridiculous this notion is, I'll limit myself to a couple. The moral majority (or whatever name is being used by right wing extremists who are NOT the majority of "christian" America) didn't want gays to be sexually promiscuous, objected to the open sexuality of the burgeoning gay community. They said gays were ruining American society.

Today gays (some and thank god not all) are having children and trying to connect in marriages and civil unions. The same argument comes out from the extremists, that gays are ruining American society. I think it's time for moderates, democrat and republican to stand up and say "Look, gay people are part of our society, they're not hurting you and they're not going away."

My question about this issue is, where was the democratic national committee to say these things? Was Terry Macaullife too busy raising money and "improving technology" to pay attention to what Karl Rove was doing? Were they too busy to say, "Hey, does anybody think that these gay marriage bans might mobilize extreme right voters? Shouldn't we be out there telling people that this isn't about their church but about a civil contract? " Would this have been so hard? I guess it's too late to save this election but it's not to late for these things to be said, to have them out there. The DNC needs to put emphasis on their party's real platform and quit selling out whoever isn't popular at the moment. Though it pains me to involve church and state in any way, the DNC has to make themselves more available or at least more tolerant of moderate religious groups. Of course, this can't come at the price of selling out other groups, namely gays, so who is going to bridge this gap. Macaullife's term is ending and it's rumored that Howard Dean may take over the DNC. One can hope that positive change will abound.