Not being a citizen does have its perks. You can’t be drafted, you never have to serve on a Jury, and this endless, three-ring circus of an Election is purely a spectator sport. I have my opinions, but should I try to enact them by pulling a lever I’d probably spend the foreseeable future dressed entirely in orange.
No, thanks.
On the down-side, it means I have no way to actively block legislation that weakens this wonderful country. The most repugnant example of this – in recent memory, at least – is known to us all as ‘Prop. 8.’
If the people against whom Prop. 8 is aligned were black, not gay, the merest mention of such a proposal would see its creators being burned at the stake. The national media would be in an outrage and the indelible infamy bestowed on the guilty would haunt them to the end of their days. But myopic xenophobia against those who are gay is apparently perfectly fine.
A Prop. 8 supporter is basically saying that a man they don’t know, in a town they’ve never seen, can’t marry a friend they’ve never met and share a house they’ll never visit…because that doesn’t meet their approval.
Then they have the disingenuous guile to suggest it’s the gay guys who have all the problems.
If the gay community tried to constrict our lives in a similar way, the howls of protest would be almost incessant. And for those who embody the land of the free to abuse legislation to dictate and limit the lives of their peers would be an indefensible insult.
A gay person’s free will is not the offense, it’s judgmental zealots who hijack the law to serve their own ends that truly need to be banned. Prop. 8, like its sponsors, should be strangled at birth. On the 4th, you have that chance.
