Moral Values Votes
The immediate cry after the election was that Bush won because of bigoted anti-homosexual Republicans. While those people certainly exist, this theory that gay marriage won the election for Bush, isn’t holding up to scrutiny.
My girlfriend and I both voted for Bush, and we are both supporters of equal rights. My father voted on a moral value reason… but it wasn’t gay marriage. It was because “Kerry is a lying piece of sh**,” in his words. Although it is true that a higher percentage of Republicans are opposed to gay marriage than are Democrats, it didn’t affect Bush’s margin of victory.
So quit trying to divide the country on an issue that is divisive enough as it is. Progress is being made, as people start to realize that not everything in the Bible or the Torah translates well into civil law. The problem, in my mind, is the ignorance gap. Voters who don’t personally know a person who is homosexual are more likely to vote against gay marriage than are voters who do personally know a homosexual. That tends to tell me that people fear what they do not know. They think that homosexuals have an agenda, other than achieving equal rights.
It doesn’t help that so many of the people who are against homosexual marriage come back with smartass quips like “What do you mean queers can’t marry? A gay guy can marry… a girl.” That’s like making kosher foods illegal and when orthodox Jews complain that they are hungry, offering them a bite of your ham sandwich. Grow up. If you can’t even discuss the issue seriously, do us all a favor and move to a country where it’s actually “cool” to be bigoted, like France.
Update: Cox and Forkum’s take:
