Why did California voters — who voted for Barack Obama and turned down a parental notification law — also vote to strip the civil rights of a certain group of people?
Some people have said that black voters who turned out to support Obama may also have been the key demographic in voting for the bigoted Proposition 8. If so, why haven’t these voters learned anything at all from the civil rights struggles of the past? Or, indeed, the continued discrimination of the present?
Why would one minority group throw in their lot with the very people who are the oppressors?
Why did the majority of Californians feel that chickens deserved an expansion in rights but people deserved to have rights taken away?
Why does it take a super majority in California to raise taxes, but only a simple majority to change the constitution?
Why is it unacceptable to discriminate against black people, Asians, left-handed and blue-eyed people; but it’s acceptable for some religious leader to stand up behind a national pulpit and claim that gay people are recruiting your child?
Is this really the 20th century?
Why can’t people see this for what it is? Fill in the blanks:
“I don’t have anything against ______________ people, as long as they just know their place. Why do they have to shove it in my face?”
“Why can’t you ___________ people just be happy with what you’ve got? Why do you have to have what WE have?”
This week I’ve heard both of these comments from people who probably genuinely believe that they are not bigoted.
