Colored Underpants
Elections are finally over and here in New Hampshire, perhaps the most politically involved state I've ever been around, the mailmen can finally seek treatment for the hernias they developed delivering daily junk from every conceivable candidate. Strangers with mysterious lists can stop ferreting out our house, mispronouncing our names, and entreating us to "get out the vote" and leave us to our seclusion. Next election I may rent a three-headed pit bull and install him at the base of the driveway.
For years I've been somewhat numbed by the two party hammerfest they both pull on each other. I no longer believe in Democrats or Republicans. I'm not too sure about Ralph Nader, either, and the Libertarians need to keep their candidates out of federal penitentiaries if they want to gain credibility with me. The truly disturbing thing to me, though, is the passage of anti-gay-marriage amendments in Arizona, Florida and California.
I am neither for or against these kinds of rights. It's like asking me if I think people in town really ought to be wearing brown shoes instead of black, or white after Labor Day. It's another individual's business, not mine. What's been missed as far as I can tell, what I've seen no one discuss on any news show, is the legitimacy of asking the question.
When the founding fathers put together our system of government, they feared what they called "the tyranny of the masses." If you put up for question the rights of any minority group to the majority, what is likely to happen? The minority gets trounced time and again. This is why we have a representative government based on democratic principles as opposed to a purely democratic government: American society was not intended to be dictated by "the tyranny of the masses."
Arguing whether or not marriage should be between a man and a woman only, or what the consequences of a society where gay marriage is allowed would be, or what color underwear the pizza cook is wearing, serve to cloud what is perhaps the most salient question: what right have we, the straight majority, have to dictate the rights of the gay minority?
The answere is that we don't, or we shouldn't. The framers didn't think so, and I don't either. How can these amendments even be put to referendum? How can we even ask the question? Nothing would make me happier than to see a judicial challenge make its way to the Supreme Court and have a ruling invalidating these state amendments because even proposing them is unconstitutional.
I have no idea whether the language of the Constitution actually supports this or not, but one can hope. I think we've let ourselves down by compromising our society through ignorance of how our society was supposed to be structured. Government should protect the rights of minority groups from the majority. What happened this week just isn't what America is supposed to be. It makes me sad.
For years I've been somewhat numbed by the two party hammerfest they both pull on each other. I no longer believe in Democrats or Republicans. I'm not too sure about Ralph Nader, either, and the Libertarians need to keep their candidates out of federal penitentiaries if they want to gain credibility with me. The truly disturbing thing to me, though, is the passage of anti-gay-marriage amendments in Arizona, Florida and California.
I am neither for or against these kinds of rights. It's like asking me if I think people in town really ought to be wearing brown shoes instead of black, or white after Labor Day. It's another individual's business, not mine. What's been missed as far as I can tell, what I've seen no one discuss on any news show, is the legitimacy of asking the question.
When the founding fathers put together our system of government, they feared what they called "the tyranny of the masses." If you put up for question the rights of any minority group to the majority, what is likely to happen? The minority gets trounced time and again. This is why we have a representative government based on democratic principles as opposed to a purely democratic government: American society was not intended to be dictated by "the tyranny of the masses."
Arguing whether or not marriage should be between a man and a woman only, or what the consequences of a society where gay marriage is allowed would be, or what color underwear the pizza cook is wearing, serve to cloud what is perhaps the most salient question: what right have we, the straight majority, have to dictate the rights of the gay minority?
The answere is that we don't, or we shouldn't. The framers didn't think so, and I don't either. How can these amendments even be put to referendum? How can we even ask the question? Nothing would make me happier than to see a judicial challenge make its way to the Supreme Court and have a ruling invalidating these state amendments because even proposing them is unconstitutional.
I have no idea whether the language of the Constitution actually supports this or not, but one can hope. I think we've let ourselves down by compromising our society through ignorance of how our society was supposed to be structured. Government should protect the rights of minority groups from the majority. What happened this week just isn't what America is supposed to be. It makes me sad.
posted by Rick Ollerman at 10:13 AM
2 Comments:
Thank you very much. It's very nice of you to write and say, and very nice of course for me to read. I let the blog lapse into a more sporadic than regular thing but I hope to get back to a higher volume in the not too distant future.
Rick, Donald/Betty is a google link farmer.
I hate to break it to you like this.
On the other hand, (a) I liked your post (b) I went out and protested prop-8 with a big sign that said, "I'm straight and I support gay marriage."
There were so many friendly, happy people diligently fighting for civil rights that so many straight folks not only take for granted, but disregard and devalue. Marriage is a lot more than two people loving each other - and all that civil contractual rights stuff(property, hospital visitation, living will, inheritance, etc...) gets ignored in the debate over what happens in the bedroom.
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