Reflections on last week

I wonder if I’m addicted to writing? When my site was down for about a week, I went crazy. I put my energy into photography and other things around the house, along with work. And, I didn’t really follow all the happenings going on in Washington - a big achievement for me!

But now that I’m back, I see that I really didn’t miss a thing. It’s all still the same old stuff; the President is putting forth a right wing ideologue that will probably end up changing the balance of power in the U.S. Supreme Court that will result in the roll back of many civil right issues such as Roe v. Wade. Not a bright future for the high court exactly, but we are the real losers. There are those in this country who despise the way some of us live. There are those who despise women who have a choice in how they will live their lives. There are those in this country who do not want African Americans to have equality to whites. And I haven’t even gotten to the subject of equality for gay citizens.

We need to brace ourselves for a few things. I don’t say this to bring you all down, but it’s reality.

I think that [Sc]Alito will be confirmed. He will be confirmed because there is nothing the Democrats can do to stop it from happening. And, the moderate Republicans (all two of them) have no backbone. The rest will go with “their President”, and not show a divided Republican Party. It will be done, and whatever happens to our rights, will happen.

Everyone is wondering, “Will Alito really be that bad? Will he really interpret each case on it’s merits and apply the Constitution in a non-biased way?” Some suggests that he is even going to be worse than Scalia.

Scalia has actually proved to be less adventuresome than Alito in curtailing congressional power. Alito wrote a dissenting opinion in 1998 arguing that Congress couldn’t bar possession of a machine gun, because merely having a machine gun isn’t connected closely enough to the thing Congress can constitutionally regulate—interstate commerce. Alito relied on a 1995 Supreme Court case saying Congress couldn’t constitutionally regulate the possession of a handgun near a school. Every court of appeals, save one, that reached this question rejected Alito’s position. [...]

While Alito goes to conservative places Scalia won’t, the more telling point is that Scalia goes to liberal places Alito won’t. [...]

The Alito record holds few such surprises. In the Washington Post, Cass Sunstein examined Alito’s dissents and found them “almost uniformly conservative.” That’s nearly true for criminal matters—just forget the “almost.” In 15 years on the bench, Alito has filed more than a dozen dissents in criminal cases or cases involving the Fourth Amendment right to be free from unreasonable search and seizure. Not one of those dissents urges a position more protective of individual rights than the majority. (source)

Texas is about to amend their state constitution to define marriage as being between one man and one woman. That means that Texas will not allow gay couples to be married, if the amendment passes (which I expect, true to real Texan ideals, it will pass easily). The amendment further states that the state “may not create or recognize any legal status identical or similar to marriage.” And that means, Texas will not allow any town or city in the state to authorize civil unions either. In other words, we get nothing. But we knew this, didn’t we? This just confirms it, and more progressive cities like Austin, and the companies that reside there, will have to roll back any same-sex spousal rights they have afforded their employees. Many companies there are worried about this, and many companies are reconsidering their plans to move to the state in light of the possible passing of this amendment. We shouldn’t let it get us down. It is inevitable, for now. I have to believe, as we all do, that in time, dignity and equality will prevail. For Texas, that may mean a lot of time.

Alaska seems to be going through similar issues. What can be done? Nothing really. This is, after all, the United States. I’m learning, with age, that the United States are not all that united. They all vary in how much gay bashing they want to dish out and how much gay bashing is publicly permissible. And most of this gay bashing all comes wrapped up as “Christian Love”. In time, will they accept us as equals and finally feel shame for these actions, or will they continue with this current trend of hatred? I don’t know the answer to that.

There are possible signs of hope in Maine. Maine passed a civil rights bill making it illegal to fire someone for being gay or lesbian. This has happened several times before, only to be overturned by voter referendum. Well, the same thing is happening this year. But unlike other years, polls suggest that voters may not over turn the bill this year. Who knows what will happen. The polls make me hopeful, but it all depends on who turns out to vote. Will people care enough about what happens to show up to vote? In America, you see, people will show up if their favorite TV show isn’t on that night and they have absolutely nothing else to do. In other countries, people risk their very lives just to walk to the voting place.

I do know this. I have this life. I have no intention spending it worrying about people who couldn’t care less for the feelings or well being of their fellow citizens. I care for people very deeply. I do. But I find myself, over time, qualifying that to read, “I care for people very deeply, to a point.” And let me tell you, that point is getting sharper and sharper as time goes on. I’m starting to care nothing for people who don’t even see me as their equal. I don’t even care to debate them on the issue because I think they are scum. I don’t hate them. I simply give them as much time of day as they give me at say, the voting booth.

As for President Bush, as pathetic a leader as he is, he should be trying to address unity at this point. He should stop talking about the Flu that is going to kill us all (only $7 billion being spent on that one, but at least it got the scandal of Libby and Rove off the front pages), and he should have used the opportunity of the Supreme Court nomination to bring us closer together as a people, instead of telling those outside of his right-wing base that we simply don’t matter.

We lost Rosa Parks this week. She was truly one of my heroes - talk about courage. I hate to even mention her in the same entry as President Bush. He’s a moronic coward with probably very few original ideas of his own. She was a pioneer and a warrior on the side of equality and civil rights. We need more like her.

We will never see the likes of that from President Bush.