California's Prop 8, Facebook and Political Action

Cutting to the chase... California's Proposition 8 was passed on November 4th which enshrined in California's constitution the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman. Does anyone else find it extremely ironic that this proposition was heavily funded by Mormons, a group who for many years practiced polygamy?

But I digress. In my humble opinion, gays and lesbians should not be treated like second-class citizens. I respect their fight for equal rights. It is not all that different than the challenges African-Americans have had to fight for for decades.

So when Prop 8 passed, I was very disappointed with California. The California I know is extremely supportive of gay rights. So why did Prop 8 pass? Simple: supporters of Gay Rights and Gay Marriage were less motivated to vote than the Religious Right were. That's it. It all boils down to votes. Dare I say that the No on Prop 8 folks were lazier than the Yes on 8? Perhaps.

Clearly, gays and lesbians came out in full force on election day to vote "No" on Prop 8. But despite the large gay population in California, gays couldn't win this fight on their own. They needed supportive straight folks to vote with them. And I might think that the most supportive community would be younger Californians.

But what was young people's response to the loss of Prop 8? Facebook. I have received several invites to Facebook groups in support of gay marriage. It may be all fine and well to "support" gay rights. It is another thing entirely to DO something about it. And it is yet another thing to do something EFFECTIVE to fight for this cause.

I fear that Facebook, MySpace, e-mail petitions and the like will lull young people into a false sense of accomplishment in fighting for gay rights. Why do I say this? Well, it's simple. If you want to fight for gay rights, you have to do one of two things: convince elected officials to pass supportive laws and/or convince the public to take the single most important political action they can do to effect social change: VOTE for the change.

If you want to convince an elected official to change a law, here's what you have to do:

1. Visit your elected official's office and talk to him/her
2. Call them
3. Send an handwritten letter

Sorry to burst everyone's bubble but politicians don't accept e-mail petitions so they are really a waste of time.

Facebook, MySpace groups, etc. preach to the choir so they are largely ineffective at changing minds. And in fact I think that may be destructive in that people use these groups as political action by proxy. They may end up taking action online and feel they are changing the world yet they never vote or never get to know their elected officials.

For this reason I will never join these useless online groups as a means of making political change. If you want to change the world, get involved in the world. Don't waste your time in cyber-space. Your community exists just a few feet from your computer -- right outside your door.

Enter the Wack Jobs

I just read an article on MSNBC.com about many prayer groups that have formed in the hopes that God will tip the presidential election toward a McCain win. Read this article by clicking here.

The long an short of it is that the religious right, seeing an Obama win inevitable have resorted to praying for John McCain to win. Forget about the irony that McCain is no darling of the Religious Right. Rather look at this as an interesting example of religion and politics in America and funny example about the hypocracy and stupidity of the Religious Right in American and religion in general.

What Hypocracy do I speak of?

If you believe that:

1. there is a God
2. He cares about American politics
3. doesn't want his gay creations to marry
4. doesn't want abortions
5. sees that an Obama administration is ineveitable
   
6. can do anything he wants (heck, he created the Universe afterall)

...wouldn't He be able to rig an election with the snap of His celestial fingers? I invite all conservative Christians to test their faith Novemer 4th. Stay at home. Don't vote. Just pray that God will act on November 4th in your stead.

Check Out Electoral-Vote.com

Just a quick plug,

One of my favorite election websites is:

http://www.electoral-vote.com

The writer of this website tracks various elections, with excellent, impartial commentary and numerous poll results from around the country.

I read this site almost every day.

Enjoy!

Super Duper Tuesday Is Upon Us

Look out! Here comes Super Tuesday. Err... or Super-Duper Tuesday, since this is the first time that we have had so many states participating in this de-facto national primary election day.

If you live in a Super Tuesday state, godfunit, go vote!!!

We in Hawaii have to wait a couple more weeks.

If you want to help "rock-the-vote" but don't live in a Super Tuesday state, you can help your favorite candidate from afar. I for one am an Obama supporter and they have taken online electioneering to the extreme. For example, check out this web resource on the Obama website:

http://my.barackobama.com/feb5calls

This website allows you to phone bank battleground primary states from your home, no matter where you live.

No matter who you support, take a little action to support your candidate. Don't do nothing because you can't do everything. Do SOMETHING. Here are a few simple things you can do to help make a difference:

• Drive a friend to the polls or caucus with you who may not have gone otherwise. By taking one inactive voter the polls, you have essentially doubled the vote
• Offer to phone bank such as the link to Obama's website above. Just a few phone calls with a convincing and encouraging word can help bring out more people to vote
• Talk to your friends and family
• Donate some money to your favorite candidate, as little as $25 goes a long way when you consider that it is combined with thousands of other small contributors like you
  

Of course there are many people who say that their vote doesn't count. But think about this from macro-view. There are probably millions of people who won't vote because of this false sense of powerlessness. If all those millions actually changed their perspective and voted, they could swing an election from one outcome to another.

By not voting, you are allowing others to decide for you who will represent you. I volunteered to work the polls in a couple elections in California years ago. The majority of voters who actually came out to vote were over 50, many were so elderly that they did not have the upper body strength to punch the hole in the punch-card ballots. Others were so senile they punched every hold on the ballot, thus invalidating their own vote.

If you are able (both physically AND mentally) please... FOR THE LOVE OF GOD... VOTE!!! Don't let Mr. and Mrs. Magoo decide who will lead this country in the difficult times we live in. If you don't like what is going on in the country, you have the power to make a difference. Remember your vote DOES count. Use it!

It's The Delegates That Count!

We just had the Nevada primary and while news reports show that Hillary Clinton won the popular vote, the fact remains that in a primary election what matters is how many delegates each candidate won.

Believe it or not, Barack Obama won Nevada with 13 delegates won over Clinton's 12. And it is ultimately important how many delegates are going to vote for your candidacy at the national convention that really matter.

How can someone win more delegates if they lost the popular vote? First off, every state is different in how they allow primary elections to be run. For example, with the primaries held in Iowa, New Hampshire, Michigan (which had all it's delegates revoked due to violating a party rule), and Nevada, delegates are allocated either in proportion of the vote (if you win 60% of the vote you get roughly 60% of the state's delegates) or delegates are won on a district or county basis as is the case in Nevada (win popular vote in a county with 5 delegates, you win all 5 delegates). Some states are winner take all such as Florida, making it a real battleground.

According to MSNBC.com, Barack Obama won much of the northern half of Nevada (Reno) while Clinton had won much of the southern half (Las Vegas). Northern Nevada is sparsely populated. Apparently, Obama won more counties that had a disproportionate amount of delegates per residents assigned to them than Clinton. This is not much different the the problem that we have with the electoral college. Less populous status have a disproportionate number of electoral college votes (like Wyoming) than more populous states (like California).

To get the real scoop on who is winning the election I rely on delegate counts provided by MSNBC.com

As of now the delegate count is:

Barack Obama 38
Hillary Clinton 36
John Edwards 18