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11 October, 2008

Saturday Morning Politicking

Today I'm not going to talk Presidential politics, except to say this: think of every commercial put out by the McCain campaign in the past few weeks. Policy discussion? Economic, environmental, or social plans? Not so much. Mud-slinging at its finest. Now I'd like to share a quote from Senator McCain back in 2000:


“I just have to rely on the good judgment of the voters not to buy into these negative attack ads. Sooner or later, people are going to figure out if all you run is negative attack ads you don’t have much of a vision for the future or you’re not ready to articulate it.”
And now for the other portion of today's entry: Florida's Amendment 2:

"Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized."
Now is probably a good time to mention that same-sex marriage is already illegal in Florida. The religious right and the homophobes think that this issue - moreso than guarantees for education, care for old people, or protection of the environment - needs to be in the State Constitution.

Similar amendments in other states are being used to take away benefits from public employees (Kentucky, for instance), and dissolve domestic partnership registries used to provide health care benefits and pensions (in Michigan). Broward and Palm Beach Counties and the cities of Tampa, Gainesville and Miami Beach, among others, offer Domestic Partnership Registries. Most Florida universities and more than half of Fortune 500 companies offer Domestic Partnership benefits. These benefits would be placed at risk, if not outright abolished, if this amendment passes. (previous paragraph blatantly stolen from here)

Regardless of what you feel about gay people ("eww...icky") or gay marriage ("the Bible says nooooooo"), I can't imaging that anyone out there really thinks it's a good idea to make it impossible to visit a partner in the hospital, or to take away insurance benefits. The people this amendment will affect are human beings and deserve the right to live their lives without interference like this.

Come on, Florida. Let's try to fix our existing problems rather than create new ones for other people.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

One of our big existing problems is insurance! It happens to everyone, but Floridians are especially victimized by it nowadays.

People with mortgages are required by law to carry insurance on our homes, when insurance companies continually and (by golly) even proudly fail to pay even a fraction of reasonable claims ... and even then payouts average 3 years from the date of the incident.

I don't care if you're gay or straight ... what happens in your bedroom is EVERYBODY's business if you don't have a roof!

[stepping off of soapbox]
ps: the "by golly" was so you start getting used to our new American language. Palinian!

:p

Anonymous said...

picking up new, intelligent readers, jame?

Jamie the ParkHopper said...

OK, insurance reform is important. But that doesn't really have much to do with the post... except for that last part where I said let's try to fix our existing problems rather than create new ones for other people.

It's not worded "you can not put hate and fear directly into the state constitution, or you can have cheaper/more effective insurance."

Anonymous said...

dem or rep ... I answered that like a true politician! I responded with my own agenda and tied it with a bow so it would LOOK like I had responded to your original question!