Maybe- just maybe- I've found my candidate. The candidate who will get me excited about the GOP- and the election- again.
OK, maybe I'm already excited. I'm just trying to tamp down my excitement, because he's kind of a dark horse candidate, but that could actually be what works in his favor...
Oh and I read about him in Esquire. Seriously, I need to get a subscription to that magazine. What more could a fashion-conscious butch want? Anyway, I'm well aware I'm stalling. Drumroll, please...
Jon Huntsman.
He's pro-gun, anti-abortion, fiscally conservative, socially moderate, has some rather alarming views on global warming (which I don't agree with, but we can work with that), and is- get this- PRO CIVIL UNIONS. Ever since C and I talked about gay marriage laws and why they're good and why they're not, I've been pretty convinced that civil unions are all the government should have to offer the gays- or, for that matter, the straights. Marriage is primarily a religious institution and if we are truly to honor the separation of church and state that our founders intended, the ceremony should be administered and regulated church by church (I'll skip the PC stuff; just read my other post).
That being said, civil unions are different from marriage; most people consider them a step down. I kind of do too- I like the idea of getting all churchy, with me in a dashing tux from The Butch Clothing Company, and the bride in a beautiful white dress, and...getting misty-eyed again. Somehow I always forget to consider the inevitable series of fights I'll be having with my mom:
Her: OK, I think we've got the caterers all set up, and the reception, and we should be able to fudge the flowers, but we just need to take care of your dress.
Me: Mom...
Her (talking over me): It's pretty short notice, and I have no idea why you've been dragging your heels so much, but I've got a list of a few places that can do the fitting-
Me: Mom!
Her: -and they have some pretty nice designs, I'm sure you'll like them, and-
Me: Mom! The tux has already been ordered. It's tailor-made, it's hanging up in my closet, and if you don't shut up about me getting a dress you don't get to come to the ceremony. I'll see you at the reception.
Anyway- Jon Huntsman. I like him. He's the consummate diplomat, literally- he was the U.S. Ambassador to Beijing while the country was blowing up all around Obama, and he has by and large avoided most of the flak that the primary Republican figures have been taking. But he also takes a softer line than most of the Tea Partiers- much as I may agree with many points on their agenda, he's not shouting about how teh gay life is "a very sad life...[a] part of Satan."
So already I like him better.
My sister reports that many of the kids in her generation are looking at the mess Obama and his government have made of their futures- debt and taxes and Social Security crashes up the wazoo- and are suddenly starting to shift right in their fiscal thinking, if not their social. And that seems to be where Huntsman stands- socially moderate, but fiscally conservative. He was a successful governor of Utah, twice. That's gotta count for something. Maybe he could be the candidate that gets the kids energized about something besides an impossibly liberal agenda, just because they have the better musicians (The Beatles vs. Christian rock=no contest).
But nobody knows his name.
In Autostraddle's guide to the Republican candidates for 2012, he doesn't even show up. He was in New Hampshire at the time of the Esquire article, talking to constituents in coffee shops and feeling out his potential voters, getting to know them and what they thought of him and adjusting his political strategies accordingly. The guy is smart. He's fluent in Mandarin, he's been ambassador to a country that does not love us, and he's been governor of Utah twice. He's got a bunch of kids, two of which are going to the Naval Academy this fall and one of which is adopted from China. He looks wonderfully all-American.
Can he do it?
I sure as hell hope he can...
Wednesday, July 27, 2011
Wednesday, July 20, 2011
I'm finally old enough to vote in an election...now what?
Reading this article-http://www.autostraddle.com/gop-presidential-candidates-unanimously-ensure-gay-apocalypse-bachmann-fears-lesbian-attack-93938/- has made me seriously depressed. Like, really. I guess with Obama in the Oval Office I was able to hate the vast majority of his politics but still be kind of happy with what was going on with the gays/marriage, if not how slowly it was going. But now, looking at the rundown of the Republican candidates lining up to unseat him, the future looks pretty grim for those who, like me, would like to save our economy but also get married to our (same-sex) partners in the not-too-far future. Pretty much all of the major candidates have something nasty to say about same-sex marriage. Michelle Bachmann is, frankly, quite frightening. While I would adore having a woman for president, it's like I said for Hillary: I'm not going to vote for her just because she's a woman. If she thinks that because I love who I love I'm "part of Satan," as she says in the article, I can't find it within myself to cast my vote for her.
Sigh...
When I was in high school taking Poli Sci and I read about how many Americans JUST DIDN'T VOTE in presidential elections, let alone regional ones, I was appalled. I couldn't understand it. Of course, I was at the height of my political activism then- reading at least six political blogs a day to keep abreast of the election news, and watching the news every night- but even so, it seemed unconscionable. How could you just not care?
But now I understand. It's not necessarily about not caring...it's about being caught between a rock and a hard place, Scylla and Charybdis. If I go with the Democrats, it is entirely possible that I will be able to get married, but I am firm in my belief that the majority of their economic and social policies will ruin the country (Obama's doing a great job of it right now). I also think my vote might hasten the slide into socialism. If I go with the Republicans, their economic policies just might save the economy- we can hope- but my very being what I am, a genderqueer gay butch who loves a beautiful, wonderful girl who loves her back- will be condemned as wrong, evil, and "of Satan."
Let me put that more clearly: the very best thing in my life- my love with and for this girl- mean, to these candidates, that no matter who I am and what I do, I am wrong, evil, and "of Satan." At best, I am woefully misguided, some sick, sad sort of deviant who just needs to be "cured" or "healed." At worst, I am a menace, looking to corrupt innocent young children. God forbid I try to adopt some- there would be no hope for those poor youngsters. I would corrupt their minds and, to quote Bachmann again, force them "to learn that homosexuality is normal, natural and perhaps they should try it". Even if I and whoever my partner might be would just be trying to provide them with a safe, loving home, we are automatically worse than wherever they might have come from- abusive or neglectful as their birth parents might have been- simply because there is no Y chromosome in our relationship.
Beyond this, however, I'd simply like to point out one more thing: http://www.autostraddle.com/hrc-polling-trends-say-lawmakers-are-behind-the-public-on-gay-marriage-74868/ WE WON. The kids, the public say gay marriage is a good thing, if you want it- in the minds of the populace, that battle is over. And here I thought democracy was supposed to reflect, at least in part, the mind of the majority- with due consideration taken for the protection of the rights of the minority. But I don't see gay marriage as violating the rights of the minority at all- after all, how am I hurting YOU if I want to get married and have a family? I'm not stealing your children; I'm not having my awesome gay sex in front of your children, nor am I telling them that being gay is what they should do. I am living, existing, and procreating with the person I love, who loves me back. And here I thought this was a basic human right, one that everyone simply received, not was given or stole from someone else. Just because I have the right to get married doesn't mean that you don't. What about this don't these candidates get?
This is just causing me a lot of pain right now, because in my economic and most of my social policies I am very staunchly Republican (or at least I agree with them more than I agree with the Democrats on these issues), and if it was anything else I'd bite the bullet and go with it. But this is an issue that is very near and dear to my heart, because when I look down the road and see that I will be unable to marry , like all of my straight friends; that I will be unable to have children and have them carry both mine and my partner's names; that if my partner is dying in the hospital I will be unable to see her without her family's consent; that I will have to pay thousands more in taxes simply because I am not married to a man...what is it they say in the pledge of allegiance? "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
Guess they skipped the justice part.
Postlude: I was just talking with my girlfriend, and she raised some excellent points. I was ranting about the fact that the candidates who are against gay marriage would be imposing their particular religious views on the entirety of the electorate- not all of Christianity/Judaism/Islam/whatever, but their particular views- and I thought our "separation of church and state" clauses in that funky old thing called the Constitution were designed to prevent exactly that. After all, marriage was, from the beginning, a religious and social institution. There should be no governmental blanket mandate telling everyone that they can only get married if there's one penis and one vagina in the mix.
However, C brought up the point that that's the same thing the gay-marriage supporters want: a blanket governmental mandate telling all the churches and synagogues and mosques and everything that not only do gays have equal rights under the law, all of the religious- not governmental!- institutions must marry them, no matter how that clashes with their religious beliefs. And that struck me as wrong too. If I were president, at this point, my stance would be that gays should have the same civil rights as any other human being, and that civil unions should carry the same rights as marriages. However, marriage is something to be decided on a church-by-synagogue-by-mosque basis. If it is against your religious beliefs as a pastor/rabbi/whatever it is in a mosque, then you shouldn't have to perform those marriages. You're a bigot, but you're not hurting me; if it's my church/synagogue/mosque/whatever saying it won't marry me and my fiance, that's your prerogative and I need to find another religious institution that will marry me. But no one should be forced to have to do something that is against their beliefs...and it is against my beliefs that I am an evil, sick, deviant human being and that I should not be allowed to get married.
Sigh...
When I was in high school taking Poli Sci and I read about how many Americans JUST DIDN'T VOTE in presidential elections, let alone regional ones, I was appalled. I couldn't understand it. Of course, I was at the height of my political activism then- reading at least six political blogs a day to keep abreast of the election news, and watching the news every night- but even so, it seemed unconscionable. How could you just not care?
But now I understand. It's not necessarily about not caring...it's about being caught between a rock and a hard place, Scylla and Charybdis. If I go with the Democrats, it is entirely possible that I will be able to get married, but I am firm in my belief that the majority of their economic and social policies will ruin the country (Obama's doing a great job of it right now). I also think my vote might hasten the slide into socialism. If I go with the Republicans, their economic policies just might save the economy- we can hope- but my very being what I am, a genderqueer gay butch who loves a beautiful, wonderful girl who loves her back- will be condemned as wrong, evil, and "of Satan."
Let me put that more clearly: the very best thing in my life- my love with and for this girl- mean, to these candidates, that no matter who I am and what I do, I am wrong, evil, and "of Satan." At best, I am woefully misguided, some sick, sad sort of deviant who just needs to be "cured" or "healed." At worst, I am a menace, looking to corrupt innocent young children. God forbid I try to adopt some- there would be no hope for those poor youngsters. I would corrupt their minds and, to quote Bachmann again, force them "to learn that homosexuality is normal, natural and perhaps they should try it". Even if I and whoever my partner might be would just be trying to provide them with a safe, loving home, we are automatically worse than wherever they might have come from- abusive or neglectful as their birth parents might have been- simply because there is no Y chromosome in our relationship.
Beyond this, however, I'd simply like to point out one more thing: http://www.autostraddle.com/hrc-polling-trends-say-lawmakers-are-behind-the-public-on-gay-marriage-74868/ WE WON. The kids, the public say gay marriage is a good thing, if you want it- in the minds of the populace, that battle is over. And here I thought democracy was supposed to reflect, at least in part, the mind of the majority- with due consideration taken for the protection of the rights of the minority. But I don't see gay marriage as violating the rights of the minority at all- after all, how am I hurting YOU if I want to get married and have a family? I'm not stealing your children; I'm not having my awesome gay sex in front of your children, nor am I telling them that being gay is what they should do. I am living, existing, and procreating with the person I love, who loves me back. And here I thought this was a basic human right, one that everyone simply received, not was given or stole from someone else. Just because I have the right to get married doesn't mean that you don't. What about this don't these candidates get?
This is just causing me a lot of pain right now, because in my economic and most of my social policies I am very staunchly Republican (or at least I agree with them more than I agree with the Democrats on these issues), and if it was anything else I'd bite the bullet and go with it. But this is an issue that is very near and dear to my heart, because when I look down the road and see that I will be unable to marry , like all of my straight friends; that I will be unable to have children and have them carry both mine and my partner's names; that if my partner is dying in the hospital I will be unable to see her without her family's consent; that I will have to pay thousands more in taxes simply because I am not married to a man...what is it they say in the pledge of allegiance? "One nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."
Guess they skipped the justice part.
Postlude: I was just talking with my girlfriend, and she raised some excellent points. I was ranting about the fact that the candidates who are against gay marriage would be imposing their particular religious views on the entirety of the electorate- not all of Christianity/Judaism/Islam/whatever, but their particular views- and I thought our "separation of church and state" clauses in that funky old thing called the Constitution were designed to prevent exactly that. After all, marriage was, from the beginning, a religious and social institution. There should be no governmental blanket mandate telling everyone that they can only get married if there's one penis and one vagina in the mix.
However, C brought up the point that that's the same thing the gay-marriage supporters want: a blanket governmental mandate telling all the churches and synagogues and mosques and everything that not only do gays have equal rights under the law, all of the religious- not governmental!- institutions must marry them, no matter how that clashes with their religious beliefs. And that struck me as wrong too. If I were president, at this point, my stance would be that gays should have the same civil rights as any other human being, and that civil unions should carry the same rights as marriages. However, marriage is something to be decided on a church-by-synagogue-by-mosque basis. If it is against your religious beliefs as a pastor/rabbi/whatever it is in a mosque, then you shouldn't have to perform those marriages. You're a bigot, but you're not hurting me; if it's my church/synagogue/mosque/whatever saying it won't marry me and my fiance, that's your prerogative and I need to find another religious institution that will marry me. But no one should be forced to have to do something that is against their beliefs...and it is against my beliefs that I am an evil, sick, deviant human being and that I should not be allowed to get married.
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