doing the wrong thing

I hate politics, and I hate politicians more than politics. But really, the thing I hate the most is Hate.

Allow me a moment to clarify.

The other day, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie vetoed a same-sex marriage bill that had been passed by the New Jersey state legislature. You may have missed it in the news cycle because a.) he had promised to do it from the outset, so it wasn’t a real surprise; and b.) he did it on a Friday night, an old public relations trick to help slip it under the radar so that it will be forgotten quickly.

I can go on a rant here as to why I am in favor of same-sex marriage, but I think I’ll leave it Washington State representative Maureen Walsh, who recently spoke in her legislature during a debate on the subject.

 

 

As Rep. Walsh says in the clip about gay marriage, “It isn’t the popular thing to do, it is the right thing to do.” I also like the bit about the majority protecting the rights of the minority. Nice.

If you haven’t been following along, the Washington State legislature has passed the bill and the governor signed it last week. Of course, the haters—led by presidential candidate Rick Santorum—are vowing to do everything they can to prevent it from taking effect.

For the record, Walsh is a Republican, like Santorum and Christie.

Christie, in helping to perpetuate the hate in his veto, not surprisingly, took the cowardly way out, stating, “I am adhering to what I’ve said since this bill was first introduced—an issue of this magnitude and importance, which requires a constitutional amendment, should be left to the people of New Jersey to decide.”

In other words: “I want all the power and acclaim that goes with being a leader, but I really don’t want to lead if it involves taking a stand on a potentially divisive issue that could be thrown back in my face later, so I’ll pass the buck and let someone else take the blame and do my dirty work. I mean, don’t get me wrong, I hate *those* people, but I’m governor of New Jersey, so I can’t say that out loud.”

I can’t underscore how loathsome Gov. Christie’s words and actions are to me. The reason we elect leaders and legislatures is to represent us, guide us and make rules for us to follow. If we wanted to have everyone vote on everything, why do we need any legislatures—or governors—in the first place?

Of course, Gov. Christie knows this. He’s just stepping back so that the pro-hate anti-gay forces can rally and do his bidding. “Let the people decide.” Please. As I’ve stated previously, the people can’t even pick a proper American Idol (sorry Taylor!), let alone be trusted to do the right thing when it comes to human rights. He knows that with the Catholic church’s support, the seemingly non-Christian haters are better organized than the pro-same-sex forces, and thus, more likely to be able to defeat the law. Makes me so freakin’ aggy*!

[*My 12-year-old son says this is the new slang for “aggravated.” Just trying to keep it phresh, yo!]

To put a little (overly) dramatic emphasis on something Rep. Walsh also said in the clip above: If over the past two hundred years, the majority of “The People”—i.e. white guys—were left to make the rules, women would still be barefoot and pregnant in the kitchen and African-Americans would still be in chains.

In conjunction with that thought, this week we’ll celebrating President’s Day, a day to honor a man who didn’t let his personal feelings get in the way of what he knew was the right thing.

I’ve been (slowly) reading Doris Kearns Goodwin’s Abraham Lincoln biography Team of Rivals, which, although not nearly as entertaining as Seth Grahame-Smith’s Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Killer, has nonetheless been very enlightening.

In Team of Rivals, Kearns chronicles the renowned debates during the 1858 campaign for Senate between Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln, throughout which Douglas constantly promoted the notion that Lincoln was “a Negro-loving agitator bent on debasing white society.” (Sound vaguely familiar?)

From the book:

In response, Lincoln avowed that he had “no purpose to introduce political and social equality between the white and black races.” He had never been in favor “of making voters or jurors of negroes, nor of qualifying them to hold office, nor to intermarry.” He acknowledged “a physical difference between the two” that would “probably forever forbid their living together upon the footing of perfect equality.” But “notwithstanding all this,” he said, taking direct aim at the Supreme Court’s decision in the Dred Scott case, “there is no reason in the world why the negro is not entitled to all the natural rights enumerated in the Declaration of Independence …. I agree with Judge Douglas he is not my equal in many respects—certainly not in color, perhaps not in moral and intellectual endowment. But in the right to eat the bread, without leave of anybody else, which his own hand earns, he is my equal and the equal of Judge Douglas, and the equal of every living man.”

This is why there’s a monument to Lincoln in our nation’s capitol, something I feel comfortable in saying will never be the case with Santorum or Christie.

Oh, by the way, Lincoln was also an original Republican, and is surely not spinning in his grave over what his party has become … you know, what with having to be entombed in cement to thwart grave robbers.

Then again, just maybe Santorum, Christie and the rest are right. I mean, Connecticut legalized same sex marriage in November 2008 and since then, it’s been one harrowing disaster after another—all the children have turned gay, there’s been social anarchy, every marriage and family in the state has dissolved, not to mention the constant tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, plagues of fire and frogs (and fire-breathing frogs), cats and dogs living in sin, all of which has made for a never-ending nightmare that we’ll never wake from ….

Or it absolutely made no difference in anyone’s daily lives, except a few people who now are treated just like everyone else and get to be as incredibly happy (or as miserable) as the rest of us married folk.

As we enjoy a long weekend in honor of Mr. Lincoln, it makes me sad to think that Rick Santorum and Chris Christie—men who hide behind facades of being “Good Christians” but are more interested in doing the “right thing” for their careers versus the right thing for their fellow brothers and sisters—may some day share the same title as him, a truly great human who was murdered for putting his personal prejudices aside to do the right thing.