Scott Brown

I think I need to say something about the election of Scott Brown because if I don't write how I feel, I keep it all bottled up inside, so here it goes: No, the election of Scott Brown isn't the end of the world. It might not mean the end of the Health Care movement, and it doesn't mean the start of another Republican tyranny. Republicans are still outnumbered. What the election of Scott Brown does do, however, is send a frustrating, disappointing, saddening, and belittling message to millions of Americans who are still fighting for the same rights and freedoms their heterosexual neighbors enjoy. It sends the message that most of America is more concerned with their bank accounts than they are with the rights of all of its tax-paying citizens. Gay marriage and gay rights, and minority rights in general were forgotten during the campaign for Ted Kennedy's senate seat in Massachusetts.

People in Massachusetts will say that they voted for Scott Brown because of his fiscal responsibility and his economic smarts, and that that type of candidate is what we need to get us out of the economic mess we are in, which is all fine; I've never really had a problem with fiscal conservatives (aside from their pretty apparent lack of sympathy for other human beings, but separate issue), because they tend not to bang on about the Bible and God and all that useless, adult fairy-tale, sky pixie shit. I even used to support fiscal conservatives. The Mitt Romneys, the Scott Browns, the (formerly) John McCains I actually supported at one time. But the problem I see with MA having elected Scott Brown over Martha Coakley is that the American public just doesn't give a shit about what should be first on their political priorities list: the civil rights of all human beings. The economy can wait; our citizens should come first, but MA has shown what is true of most of the country: Americans don't really give a shit about anything else other than the cash they stuff into their pockets. Fuck gay rights, women's rights, minority rights, is what MA said yesterday.

Forget all of the arguments that are happening in Massachusetts and across the country about healthcare and communists and socialists and the evil, communist Obama supporters vs. the win-one-for-Jesus Republicans, and all the arguments about the economy and how to go about fixing it, and about the pathetic state of your average Joe the Plumber's bank account. Shouldn't all of this self-indulgent wankery be quickly set aside in favor of the most important and devastating problem facing The United States: the fact that millions of its citizens still don't have equal protection and equal rights under United States law? Electing Scott Brown has done nothing to solve this problem. Electing to the United States senate a man who says proudly that marriage is between a man and a woman only, and who has the balls to say that the rights and liberties of a stifled, stomped-over, and forgotten minority should be left to the hands of the majority in a popular vote does not do anything to protect the tax-paying minority of gays, lesbians and bisexuals whose rights are slowly eroding away in 45 out of 50 states in America. Only in Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, Iowa, and New Hampshire do gays and lesbians have full and equal protection under the laws of their states. In the rest of the states in the country we see instead attempts to lessen the rights of gays and lesbians. There are attempts at passing laws that limit the rights of gays and lesbians. Laws which tell them that they are not full citizens and therefore will not enjoy the same marriage rights as the rest of the nation, and laws which unconstitutional as dictated by the Constitution of the United States. And in Scott Brown's case, leaving the rights and liberties of millions of people who are a part of a minority to a majority vote is totally illogical, and he and everyone else in the nation knows that. Minority rights being left up to a popular vote will never work.

For Scott Brown to say that the matter of gay rights is a states issue is absolutely fucking ridiculous, selfish, and arrogant. If civil rights for blacks in the 1960s had been left to the states to decide, do we really think Obama would be our current president? It took The Civil Rights Act in 1964 to force states to comply with the banning of racial segregation. It took The Civil Rights Act to invalidate the Jim Crows laws, laws which were put into place by individual states. It took a sweeping, federal action to guarantee civil rights for a minority group. It's no different for gays and lesbians and their rights as tax paying citizens in America. And yet the most liberal state in the entire country elected a Republican into the bluest seat in the Senate: Ted Kennedy's former seat. Why? Because people were bored by Martha Coakley? Because Martha Coakley was an idiot during her campaign, underestimating the wrath of Boston sports fans? Please. Martha Coakley lost because America, and more specially, Massachusetts, is more concerned with the current status of their bank accounts instead of the current status of the rights of their neighbors, friends, and fellow citizens. When I was walking away from Franklin High School after I voted yesterday, a Scott Brown supporter yelled to other Brown supporters, "That's right! Let's hope they get the message!" Yes, Brown supporters, I get your message: money is far more important to and your country than the rights, liberties, and happiness of a group of millions of Americans who still don't enjoy the same rights and freedoms that you do.