What is Most Important?

Last week after the Presidential election, my friend told me, “All I keep hearing is that George W. Bush won re-election because of bigoted southern Christians who demonize gays and abortions. How is that any different from the bigoted people saying this who are demonizing southern Christians?” I told him to shove off. In this election, voters focused on four main issues: moral values, the economy, terrorism and the war in Iraq. The most important issue polled was moral values. The exit polls taken the day of the election, shown on all television networks covering the election, gave 79 percent of that vote to George Bush and 18 percent to John Kerry. Are there that many people who don’t understand the implications of another four years of George Bush? Damn you people who think moral values are more important than real problems. John Kerry should have won this election. I am not demonizing anyone, but I truly think it’s a setback in this country when moral values become more important than the issues that plague America. What ever happened to the separation of Church and state in this country? That key constitutional liberty is guaranteed so religion would never influence our government and the government would never influence religion. It’s the Supreme Court that interprets the Constitution that dictates what is and is not constitutional in this country, not white Evangelical Christians who decide to go out in massive droves to vote against gay marriage in the state of Ohio. If you’re confused about this, let me make it simple. John Kerry lost the presidency because of the anti-gay Bush whose political advisor, Karl Rove, made Ohio (the Florida of 2004) his chief strategy to win the election. So while these groups went to the polls and voted to ban gay marriage, they also voted for the born again conservative Christian. We are living in a socially changing world. We are the next generation of adults and for many of us, we’re OK with the fact that the person sitting next to us might be gay or lesbian. Big deal if they are. I would rather have homosexual friends than a person who tells me that they should have no rights, and more radically, should die, or a woman has committed murder after she has had an abortion. You all on the right side of things need to think out of the box and look at the changing world around us. Just look at the Electoral College map of the United States and you can see how divided this country is over these issues. We have the right to make personal choices in our lives. I should not have to be subjected to someone else’s values if I don’t believe in them. Don’t get me wrong, I think it’s great that people have morals. But my values may not be the same as yours. It ticks me off when the White House says, “Marriage is and should be defined as being between one man and one woman.” Who the hell are you to tell the American people that? Just because it has been the norm for the past 5,000 years or so doesn’t mean things can’t change. That frame of thought is tyranny and if I’m not mistaken, that was the reason why we declared independence back in 1776. I might have over dramatized the previous sentence, but a Constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage will be debated within the next four years in Congress; if it passes, other Supreme Court rulings will fall too to the conservative base. The right to choose will be attacked, and nobody but a woman has that right, not conservative males who are deeply religious. Then there’s the whole obsession over stem cell research. Don’t get me started there or I might have to write another letter. All I want to say for that is thank you California (the state voted to fund research if you didn’t know). The Supreme Court is aging and nobody but the President, with congressional approval, can appoint a new judge. I don’t believe him when he says he will only appoint judges who will strictly interpret the Constitution. Not every American thinks these issues are wrong and they need to realize that. This election was not a “mandate.” Matt Foreman of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force said it best: “Fundamental human rights should never be put up for a popular vote.” I fear the direction that our country is heading towards and we will all regret it as our generation becomes the next block of key demographic voters. It will be just too late.