So the day every political junkie has been waiting for is just around the corner—Super Tuesday is this coming Tuesday, February 5th.
For those of us who have doggedly tracked this protracted presidential race, Super Tuesday is the mother lode of primaries. Democrats in 22 states and Republicans in 21 will choose their candidates.
This year-long roller coaster ride of democracy has treated us to a panoply of candidates that span the political spectrum. But as Super Tuesday approaches our choices have been slashed and for some hopes dashed.
New York’s Republicans are denied their favorite son because Rudy Guiliani denied good political advice. His Florida-only strategy backfired. Ron Paul and Mike Huckabee may or may not stick around after Tuesday but for all intents and purposes the Republican race is now between John McCain and Mitt Romney.
When the race started, my favorite Dem was John Edwards—I really don’t care how much he spends on a haircut. I liked what he had to say. I liked his dedication to his wife and family. I liked that as a southern Democrat he gave the Republicans agita. But as the race heated up, his candidacy didn’t.
So the burning question now is who am I going to vote for on Tuesday?
Well, I have never been more conflicted in my life. My internal flip flopping between Clinton and Obama makes Mitt Romney look like steady Eddie.
As far as lesbian and gay issues are concerned, I know we can count on either Clinton or Obama to do the right thing. With either of them in the White House, the eight years of homophobia that has become a trademark of the Bush presidency will end. Assuming that the Democrats maintain and expand their majorities in both the House and Senate, we’ll see either President Clinton or President Obama signing the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, the Matthew Shepard Act and the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell. Those events will be the beginning of what could be a golden age for LGBT issues in America.
But, what about Super Tuesday?
I like Hillary Clinton. She’s done a good job as one of our U.S. Senators. She’s intelligent, understands the intricacies of U.S. policy both abroad and at home and has a personal fortitude that has withstood political and personal firestorm after firestorm. She welcomes challenges. She’s not afraid of anything.
Letting down her guard just a bit in New Hampshire showed the country that there’s an emotional core to this woman. Opening up that window let us all know that she’s just like the rest of us—human.
It may surprise some of you that behind this hard, political exterior of mine there’s a political idealist defining my views.
After eight years of cynicism and lies, I really want to believe in our country again. You have no idea how deep this desire is. I’m one of those kids Caroline Kennedy spoke about in her recent op-ed in the New York Times. I really never knew her dad. My first real memory of the Kennedy presidency is the grainy black and white image on our family TV of the plane in Dallas that flew his body back to DC. I was five. My mother stood at the ironing board crying.
But it is the hope he instilled in my parents who handed it down to me that has informed my politics and my activism. JFK embodied an America of promise. He reached out his hand to us so that we could take the hands of others and make our nation a better place to live.
I want that back. I want to believe in America again.
The only candidate that has spoken to the idealist in me is Barack Obama.
His belief in change, his ability to bring people into the presidential process who usually stay home, his understanding of the real challenges that face our country inspires. But the pragmatic part of me is concerned about his experience factor. Are his years as an Illinois State Senator and a U.S. Senator enough?
Well let’s not forget that political office was W’s fall back position because he couldn’t make it in business. Obama on the other hand has spent his entire career organizing people for political change. Perhaps the experience issue is just a political ruse.
In just a few days I’ll have to make a decision. But, it won’t happen until the voting booth’s curtain is closed and I’m ready to pull the lever.
Feel the Love
Today is Valentine’s Day. My partner Lynn and I can tell each all day long how much we mean to each other, that we love each other, that we’re committed to each other for the long haul. But, the two words we can’t say in any legally binding way are “I do.”
I turn fifty next week and I’d really like to be able to get married to the person I love before we’re both too old to enjoy all the rights and responsibilities that come with legal marriage.
With the Presidential race dominating our collective consciousness, we need to watch out for stealth campaigns to make marriage equality a wedge issue in various states. Now, these may be states that will go to the Republican candidate anyway—like Arizona which is quite likely to vote for its favorite son, John McCain.
Lawmakers there want to put a constitutional ban on marriage equality on the ballot even after a similar measure was defeated by the voters in November of 2006. The new bill, however, isn’t an exact copy of the old. Arizona’s marriage equality opponents learned a thing or two from their earlier defeat. The proposal they’re floating for approval won’t ban the recognition of civil unions or domestic partnerships. Arizona voters in 2006 felt banning all three—marriage equality, civil unions and domestic partnerships—was just a bit to punitive. We’ll see if those same voters want to codify marriage as being purely in the heterosexual realm.
The same can’t be said about the straight only marriage advocates in Florida. After four years of collecting signatures, Florida4Marriage managed to get 649,346 signatures to put their Marriage Protection Amendment on November’s ballot. This is a bill that would not only ban lesbians and gay men from marrying but would also deny us domestic partnerships and civil unions. Basically—we’re worthless in the eyes of Florida’s Radical Christian Right.
However, if there was ever a state where marriage equality could become a wedge issue for the Presidential race it’s Florida. And as we all know, winning Florida is key to winning the White House.
But this being Valentine’s Day and all—why don’t we focus on the love.
In Maryland, marriage equality activists have been lobbying their state legislature furiously and now think they’re close to have the necessary votes to pass a bill. The first hearing on the legislation legalizing same-sex marriage is being held today, Valentine’s Day. I think that’s fitting.
Then there’s Marla Spivak a student at Choate Rosemary Hall, a private prep school in Connecticut. Karl Rove was there. Spivak and Rove had an animated dialogue which ended with the student invoking the Constitution saying its reference to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” supported marriage equality. Rove just blathered on about polygamy. Go Marla.
To make sure we really feel the love, my favorite non-presidential candidate, Al Gore, recently posted a video blog on his Current TV website. In just a few seconds, Gore made it clear he wasn’t going to get into the race—he came out in favor of marriage equality.
He said “I think that gay men and women ought to have the same rights as heterosexual men and women, to make contracts, to have hospital visiting rights, to join together in marriage, and I don’t understand why it is considered by some people to be a threat to heterosexual marriage to allow it by gays and lesbians.”
Gore went on to talk about the importance of promoting faithfulness and loyalty regardless of sexual orientation otherwise one is simply promoting promiscuity. He ended by saying “All the loyalty and love that two people feel for one another when they fall in love ought to be celebrated and encouraged, and shouldn’t be prevented by any form of discrimination in the law.”
Finally, a straight national political leader who is respected in the international arena has the courage to stop dancing around this issue. Unlike his plans for Social Security during the 2000 race, he doesn’t want to put us and our relationships in a lock box. Instead, he wants all of us to show our love and affection for our partners just the way he and Tipper showed all of us what they mean to each other on national TV when he accepted the Democratic nomination for President eight years ago.
With any luck, Al Gore might be able to do for marriage equality what he’s done for global warming.
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