Journaling: Election Results

Current Music: Social Distortion - Ball and Chain
Current Mood: Happy/hopeful with grain of salt

So it's the day after the national elections and everyone's going crazy with excitement over Obama winning. To be honest, I'm not entirely enthused. It certainly isn't that I'm displeased with that result; I wanted him to win and am quite glad that he did. I'm just sort of reevaluating the electorate after the votes are counted.

When I look at the decisions on ballot initiatives in Arizona, California, and Florida, all three of which voted to constitutionally ban same-sex marriage, I see the tragic truth in the statement that the U.S. is a 'middle-right' nation. With the election of Obama, many people are claiming it a great victory, whether for blacks who can achieve anything now, whites who can never be called racist again, or just for change and hope; right now, that celebration sickens me a little. In Arizona, I can understand it a little since, after all, the state went to McCain, so they weren't all for change and hope and all the other slogans of the Obama campaign. However, for California and Florida, where a popular majority voted for this change and hope, they seem to have decided that change and hope aren't for everyone. By voting against same-sex marriage and for Obama, they're contradicting the very idea of hope in our nation.

The only conclusion I can come to is that our country didn't vote for change, nor for Obama. They voted for someone who wasn't a Republican; they voted for someone who didn't have the kind of folksy charm that duped people into electing George W. Bush twice and let him fuck with this country enough that everyone finally got tired of it. As such, I'm supremely disappointed in the American people. While there are certainly a great many people who got out to vote with change and hope held near and dear, this country isn't willing to accept progress. The only change they want is to get back to Clinton-era prosperity, or even that of a year ago. It's not progress toward a liberal, accepting nation, it's a reaction to the extremes we've seen in the last 8 years.

When voters are faced with a decision between the Democrat and the Republican candidates, they have those categories to identify each choice. When there's a direct popular vote proposition, referendum, or initiative, that choice isn't made clear, so the people vote more honestly, unswayed by the disdain for Republicanism that has swept the country and swept Obama into office.

These results not only tell us that Americans are less willing to change than so many are trying to make out, but also that most Americans do consider gays to be second-class citizens, unworthy of the same rights as straight people. It shows that Americans are, in their ignorance, willing to believe the vast campaigns of misinformation that accompanied such constitutional amendments. The courts even had to change the name of Proposition 8 in California to appropriately reflect the intent, since those putting it on the ballot don't even have the guts to say they just want gays to get back in their closet where they belong. Even with the opposition efforts to inform people, it appears it was too much to believe that gays don't also want to fuck animals and children, or that gays don't want to teach elementary school kids how anal sex works, or that gays are infrequently the stereotyped gender-blurring sexual beings, eager to prey upon their straight counterparts.

I want to believe that there is some hope, that maybe Obama does truly believe his campaign platform and will try to move us forward instead of back, but right now, it's too easy to see the roll of partisan politics, and too easy to see that gays are the group it's okay to hate in the U.S.A.. Homosexuals are now the tip of the iceberg that has floated alongside the ship of state for all of human history. Below the surface there's still so much hatred: of blacks, hispanics, asians, women, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, short people, fat people, ugly people, and the list goes on. I know this isn't the end for gay rights, nor is it a new struggle, but it's painful to see the sense of righteousness that has accompanied the Obama victory when so many of supporters of his positive message went ahead and, in the privacy of their voting machine, cut down the dreams of a great many harmless Americans. To me, that is an unforgivable testament to the ignorant conservativism that is still rampant in this nation.