Occasional Jots and Tittles

Religion is like a penis.

It’s fine to have one.

It’s fine to be proud of it.

But please don’t whip it out in public and start waving it around.

And please don’t try to shove it down my children’s throats.

I was shopping in the grocery store earlier today when I saw something that made me think.

A boy about 10 or so tripped and fell, knocking his knee first against a steel pipe serving as a “bumper rail” around a free-standing freezer case, and then again on the hard concrete floor. I could tell pretty quickly he was probably not seriously injured, but it clearly hurt and he started howling and crying.

His (presumable) sister, about 14, helped him up and his mother, who was several steps ahead, rushed back to see what happened.

She didn’t immediately check the floor to see if it was wet to make it a “slip and fall” so she could file a lawsuit against the store. She didn’t yank him to his feet snarling “You’d better stop that crap now or I’ll give you something to cry about.” (Both of those are reactions I’ve seen in similar situations in the past, and at least one bystander was urging her to take the boy straight to Customer Service so they could document his fall.) And the sister didn’t make fun of him for falling, nor did she roll her eyes about the delay.

Instead, the motehr hugged the boy close to her, rocking him back and forth a bit, saying “It’s going to be OK” until he stopped the worst of the crying, about 30 seconds later. Then, with one arm still around him, she walked back to her cart and they kept shopping.

So often I see examples of bad parenting in public that it almost came as a shock to realize that she’d handled things about as perfectly as you could expect a mother shopping with two kids to do. I wish I’d had the presence of mind to call her aside in the next aisle to thank her for providing such a good example.

I have to admit that a part of me really, really enjoys watching the Republican primary process.

Due to the vagaries of Electoral College math, it’s hard to to compare one election’s results with another’s. When Shrub was elected president in 2000, the College was already malproportioned relative to the population of the states; the census taken earlier that year was about to confirm the transfer of 2 more House seats (and Electoral votes) each to Texas, Florida, Georgia and Arizona, and one each to California, Colorado, North Carolina and Nevada. In other words, by the time of the election, the population behind twelve electoral votes had already shifted from one state to another. The results of the 2010 census, which shifted another 12 seats, will first be seen in the 2012 election.

A casual observer might note that most of the growth is coming in Republican states and assume that the changes favor Republicans. What that analysis overlooks is what sort of demographic change is fueling the shifts.

For instance, the fastest growing segment of the population in Texas has been Hispanic immigrants – currently whipping boy #2 in the Republican pantheon. That’s true to a lesser extent in Nevada (and, in fact, in many western states) as well. Even legal immigrants are feeling the anti-immigrant backlash (small wonder, since right-wing rhetoric often deliberately obscures the difference between legal and illegal immigration; their whole point is to stir up animosity between “us” and “them”). Over the long haul, does anyone outside of a handful of overeager RNC staffers believe this won’t come back to bite them in the ass? Colorado and Nevada both flipped to the “D” column in 2008.

Second, some Republican states are losing representation too, and look which ones: Indiana, Mississipppi, Ohio, and Oklahoma in 2000; Louisiana and Missouri in 2008. What they have in common is economies based on blue-collar or farming jobs that are slowly drying up, along with a reputation for less than broad world-views. You take someone from Indiana or Ohio to California for five or ten years and you’re much more likely to end up with a moderate or a moderately liberal person than you are to increase the balance of conservatives in the Golden State. Once people see there’s a big, wide wonderful world outside the limits of Lima Heights Adjacent, their view of things tends to change a bit.

But most importantly (and even the Christianist hate groups like the Family Research Council, the American Family Association, and their ilk recognize this), the demographics of age are against them. On the issue of race: my great-grandfathers probably would never have even worked with a black man. My mother’s father employed them, but they couldn’t enter his house through the front door or use the same bathroom as the family. My mother allows black people into her house (through whichever door) but never really made any friends who were African-American. My sisters and I (while we may not be prejudice-free, try as we might) treat blacks and whites essentially the same – it wouldn’t occur to us to think of doing otherwise. Times change, and the speed of change is increasing.

Twenty-five years ago, no one seriously considered same-sex marriage to be within reach in our lifetimes. Perhaps one-quarter of Americans at most thought *any* recognition of same-sex relationships by the government was appropriate; the majority of those believed some sort of “domestic partnership” agreement was all that could or should be achieved.

Same-sex marriage is now permitted by law in six states and the District of Columbia. Civil unions and domestic partnerships providing most or all of the in-state benefits (though not the hypothetical transferability) of same-sex marriage are permitted in twelve additional states – or nearly 40% of the states between both marriage and civil unions. Slowly (but far more rapidly than we’d have dared hope a decade ago), the law is coming to understand that “Equal protection of the laws” means exactly what it says. More importantly, 40% of the population of the US now lives in a jurisdiction that recognizes one or the other. And what is becoming readily apparent is that, in fact, the sky is not falling and recognizing same-sex relationships causes no problems for society.

Which is probably why already an actual majority of Americans are in favor of recognizing same-sex marriage – not just partnerships, but actual marriage – confirmed by three separate independent polls taken over the course of spring and early summer. The percentage in favor has been steadily growing (NEVER declining) for the last decade or more. Among those under 35, the approval rate is over 70%. To put it bluntly, time is not on the side of the anti-gay bigots.

Which is why (coming full circle) it’s so entertaining to watch Republican politics. If ever there was a need to jettison a policy that was becoming increasingly unpopular, increasingly a big neon sign proclaiming “We are the party of yesterday’s failed bigotry,” this would be it. People who are 35 or younger don’t remember whites-only water fountains in this country, or “No coloreds” lunch counters; they associate those policies with repressive authoritarian regimes like South Africa during apartheid. And they’re fast coming to view Republicans in the same light.

They may not be registering as Democrats, either – we all know that the fastest growing option for Americans is to choose no party at all. (That may be one reason why the Republican primaries are filled with anti-gay bigotry; captive to their hate-filled base, the shrinking percentage of registered Republicans (who usually close their primaries and caucuses to registered party members) are trapped in a world where everyone else thinks like they do, and they either don’t realize the world around them is changing, or they just can’t bring themselves to reconcile to it.) But what matters is how these new independent voters cast their votes, and it’s hard to believe that they will align themselves in any significant numbers with a party they consider morally repugnant.

Republicans are, to quote Hosea, “have sown the wind, and they shall reap the whirlwind: it has no stalk; the bud shall yield no meal: if so be it yield, the strangers shall swallow it up.” In making gays whipping boy #1 in their pantheon, they have sown the seeds of their own destruction.

Couldn’t happen to a better bunch of people.