Wednesday, November 5 2008
While we celebrate the Obama victory (and celebrate we did), we still don’t know what will happen in California (with Prop 8, the results are still so wobbly but the latest report from The Bay Area Reporter said it passed, which is a very bad thing for same sex marriages) and we’ve seen both good, bad and ugly things happen in the rest of the country.
It’s pretty amazing what’s happening. Colorado and South Dakota agree that it’s a woman’s right to choose. In Massachusetts they decided to decriminalize weed. In Michigan they said yes to human stem cell research and medical marijuana. Nebraska voted against discrimination.
On the other side of things, like Prop 8 in California, it’s pretty bleak.
In Arkansas they decided it would be better for the state’s 9,000 children in foster care to stay there then to be adopted by an unmarried heterosexual couple or by gay or lesbian couple. These same couples can’t even serve as foster parents. This is insane, and then in Florida, gays and lesbians not only can’t marry, but domestic partnerships and civil unions will not be recognized. Arizona decided against gay marriage too.
At this moment, I’m not sure what’s happening with Prop K in San Francisco.
It’s amazing how far we’ve come, and how far we’ve yet to go. Perhaps that’s the yin and yang of the universe. Mike Riggs wrote an easy to read op-ed on the subject today at the Washington City Paper.
Posted in seX matters by jamye on 11/5/2008 - 5:13pm
Tell Me You Love Me
Subscribe to the seXmatters Feed
November 8th, 2008 at 12:03 pm
“Nebraska voted against discrimination.”
Ah, no.
Nebraska codified in its state constitution a prohibition against affirmative action programs. In a state that’s 93% white and has a long, long history of racial discrimination, Nebraska’s voters decided enough and enough.
The initiative was spearheaded by Ward Connolly, the same black conservative activist behind similar constitutional amendments in California and Michigan. Although drafted to encompass all state programs, the initiatives were intended to end affirmative action considerations for blacks in admissions to state universities.
Preferential treatment for women (via Title IX which trumps the state constitution under the federal constitution’s supremacy clause), athletes, rural residents (virtually always white), and children of alumni (again, virtually always white) remains perfectly legal.
Only 2.2% of the student body at the University of Nebraska is black; 2.7% is Hispanic; and 0.6% is American Indian. If that’s what affirmative action has wrought, bravo to Nebraska’s anemic public education system!
Amazing that when whites are looking for a person to lead the charge against affirmative action, they always call Ward. Ironic that they don’t have a problem with affirmative action then.