Ta-Nehisi Coates, who is black:
Still on a gut, emotional level, this makes me sick. If someone wants to give me a reason why gay people shouldn't be able to marry that doesn't, at its root, boil down to "yuck," I guess I'd love to hear it. But really that isn't the point. I've always maintained that you don't have to like black people to do the right thing. Same thing here. I'm not very interested in folks's homophobia. I'm interested in why they think they should be in the business of dictating terms of love to two consenting adults. It's disgusting. And we need to let this shit go. There may be great, sound reasons beyond--the blacks are pathological!!--to explain this. But there are no great, sound reasons that excuse it. Cut this shit out. We know better. Even if other people didn't.
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I was bouncy on the subway and wanted to give people hi-fives and say "We did It!", but everyone looked the same as every other day: tired, stonefaced, emotionless.
I'd say maybe 1/4th of the people on my train looked more enthusiastic and happy than normal. I was tempted to try to start up an Obama cheer, to see how many responded....
I was extra tired! But happy inside my head.
I was bouncy on the subway and wanted to give people hi-fives and say "We did It!", but everyone looked the same as every other day: tired, stonefaced, emotionless.
Last night people were hugging each other on the street, according to my co-worker who was watching the returns at Rockefeller Center. I think this morning we were all too hungover from celebrating to be properly bouncy.
So - opinions on this dress? On the undies underneath?
Gwyneth Paltrow Vamps It Up In Sheer Dress (PHOTOS)
So - opinions on this dress? On the undies underneath?
A big "who cares"? So over Paltrow.
I woke up this morning to the sound of Maya Angelou reading poetry on the CBS Morning News. Best wake-up call Ever! (And such an improvement over jackhammers and barking dogs yesterday...)
I actually had to talk myself into thinking a McCain presidency wouldn't be all THAT bad before I could get up and check the numbers this morning.
Realistically, the only way this election could have failed to cause a vast improvement over current leadership would have been for McCain to win and then keel over during the post-inauguration celebration in January.
I am really shocked that it is going to pass in California. I thought I lived in the liberalist, bluest of states!
Massachusetts? I know California gets talked up as the liberal den of iniquity by conservative pundits, but it is the state that elected Reagan and Schwarzenegger to multiple terms as governor. My condolences if it turns out that Proposition 8 actually passed, and crossed fingers that it will be repealed as soon as possible.
the Mormon church pouring so much money into the Yes on 8 campaign
Do not underestimate how much the Mormon church loathes gays. They have a lot of money and they have a practiced organizational structure and a lot of sheep-brains who believe anything that comes out of the Office of the Presidency is the unadulterated truth. Disagreement is not just disagreement, but a near occasion to sin. There were a lot of Mormons actively protesting the church's involvement in Prop 8, as well as the existence of Prop 8 at all, and there is going to be religious backlash for those people. Arguments over church doctrine have cost people their jobs and their membership in a church they'd like to believe in.
The difference that such people see between being gay and being black is that being black is a passive but very noticeable thing, if you go simply by color of skin and not by attendent culture and history. Being gay, on the other hand, is something that a lot of people honestly believe is purely a matter of action. Even if the tendency is inborn/determined by God, the belief is that the action should be controlled by "decent" folks and shouldn't be catered to by laws.
If the Mormon church had a bigger presence back east, New England wouldn't have the gay marriage laws they do. California has a huge Mormon population, and until/unless the church's influence fades, gay marriage in California has a hard road ahead.
