The Obama Project@WindonWater.net

http://ta-nehisicoates.theatlantic.com/archives/2008/11/even_more_prop_8.php

One guess at what group feels they were robbed of “meaningful gender identities,” and thus likely long for them with a much greater intensity than the rest of the populace. It’s quite likely that the same impulse that would attract men by the hundreds of thousands of men to the Million Man March–the sense that something had been lost–is the same impulse them that would lead them to reject an expansion, and to their mind, a redefinition of marriage.

A very good point. Another: the feeling that black people’s marriages are persistently under attack. A clinging to traditional marriage as a cure for some of the ills that affect black people is a characteristic of black America that is under-appreciated.

This is from Richard Ford’s article that Ta-Nehisi is quoting:

After all, traditional marriage isn’t just analogous to sex discrimination—it is sex discrimination: Only men may marry women, and only women may marry men. Same-sex marriage would transform an institution that currently defines two distinctive sex roles—husband and wife—by replacing those different halves with one sex-neutral role—spouse. Sure, we could call two married men “husbands” and two married women “wives,” but the specific role for each sex that now defines marriage would be lost. Widespread opposition to same-sex marriage might reflect a desire to hang on to these distinctive sex roles rather than vicious anti-gay bigotry. By wistfully invoking the analogy to racism, same-sex marriage proponents risk misreading a large (and potentially movable) group of voters who care about sex difference more than about sexual orientation.

After all, many opponents of same-sex marriage don’t oppose gay rights across the board. In California, same-sex couples enjoy significant civil rights protections and legal status as domestic partners, and voters have shown no interest in changing that. National polls show that overwhelming majorities support employment-based gay rights, including equal access to careers in the military, and same-sex civil unions. It’s only when it comes to marriage—the word, with its religious as well as civic connotations—that pro-gay sentiment dwindles: Recent polls show that only 30 percent to 36 percent of Americans support same-sex marriage. It’s this finding, of course, that the results of last week’s elections echo.

The sharp differences in the polling numbers, depending on whether the question is marriage as opposed to almost any other gay rights issue, suggest that opposition to same-sex marriage isn’t simply the 21st century’s form of racism. After all, whites who opposed racial miscegenation in the Jim Crow South didn’t support other civil rights for blacks or civil unions for mixed-race couples. In fact anti-miscegenation laws worked hand-in-glove with laws prohibiting sex outside of marriage and intimate cohabitation of unmarried adults to effectively outlaw interracial intimacy altogether. When Mildred Loving, who was black, and Richard Loving, who was white, successfully challenged Virginia’s law barring interracial marriage, they were not just fighting for social acceptance and hospital visitation rights. They were fighting a jail sentence, suspended on the condition that they leave the Virginia and never return together: effective banishment from the state. Anti-miscegenation laws were designed to prevent intimate racial mixing of any kind; by contrast, many of the people who voted to ban same-sex marriage are apparently supportive of same-sex intimacy—provided you don’t call it marriage.

Coates is not overwhelmingly persuaded, but I quoted more than he did because I think there’s a “there” there.

QT

The purpose of this blog is to avoid partisan politics but to talk about this time – the effect of the Obama candidacy on our country. I’ve focused mainly on race, though I’d hoped to get into discussion of gender (Sarah Palin helped me focus there a bit) and the wider discussion of culture – proposition 8 brought out a culture discussion, but I also hoped to talk a little bit about some of the right in front of our face happenings – like when Obama brought the house down doing his brush his shoulders bit. What a moment!

The Republican Party is having a bit of an identity crisis as a result of the Obama and Palin candidacies. Sarah Palin rallied the religious conservative base of the Republican party while wholly alienating the conservative “elite.” Given a choice, I’d choose that “conservative elite” – education and thoughtfulness deserve to be not only acceptable, but preferred qualities. Barack Obama exemplifies both, which in the long run thrilled his supporters (more on this later!). But the landslide victory of Obama over McCain was partially the result of African Americans and Latino voters going overwhelmingly for Obama. Combine that with an overwhelming youth vote favoring Obama, including a good chunk of evangelical youth, and you can see the problem the republican party is having – demographically they are becoming increasingly irrelevant.

The internal debate on this very issue has begun – with Gov. Michael Steele, one of the most prominant African-Americans in the Republican party – stepping up to run for the chairmanship of the party. And here is a debate between Pat Buchanan and a republican strategist – who happens to be African American:

QT

Here in the United States, the nation is embroiled in the political season as we gear up for presidential elections on the first Tuesday in November 2008.  We’re winding down on the primary season, and will immediately pivot into the general election campaign thereafter.  It is likely that Barack Obama will be one of the candidates for president.  As a result of the primary campaign, a number of disturbing trends have come to light – these include racism, sexism, religious intolerance, anti-intellectualism, classism, and a complete lack of unity.   The Obama Project is an effort to address this in the spirit of what WindonWater.net is all about… namely producing small ripples to push against the current…

What:  The Obama Project will be a series of posts focussed on presenting factual information about candidate Barack Obama that negates misinformation about him – but with the specific goal of NOT promoting the candidate, but rather, promoting the eradication of racism, sexism, classism, religious intolerance, and anti-intellectualism.  Of course, I hope that focussing on these things will yield more unity in place of divisiveness.

How: The mission statement of WindonWater.net is “conversation for a better world, and a happy soul.”   The idea is that by changing the way we talk about stuff, we turn the tide on cynicism and negativity.  How necessary is THAT these days?

Why: Why Barack Obama?  Well, largely because his candidacy has called all of this stuff to the forefront of public discourse.  With this candidate, we have room to talk about racism, and religious intolerance.  We have room to talk about the meaning of love of country (patriotism).  We have room to talk about classism, and sexism.  And of course, the candidate has given a groundbreaking speech on race, that gives us a starting place.

As a Baha’i, I’ve been hesitant to start this effort.  Baha’is are not supposed to engage in partisan politics, but rather, are supposed to simply vote their consciences.  I’ve fallen short of that mark often this cycle, because of being so very partisanly in support of candidate Barack Obama.  Notwithstanding, I have concluded that this is something that I can do, and even should do, and I do believe it is doable without trending toward partisanship (at least I hope it is).

Anyway – as a woman and as an African-American, I’ve been sucked in to the process because the issues are very real to me.  And I do feel a personal need to have a direct response to these issues, and a need to do so in a way that avoids the persistent negativity that has dominated the blogosphere.  I hope others will join the conversation, and lend thoughts and ideas – especially out of the box, especially with a spiritual perspective, as we work through these tough issues.

My goal is to produce one post a week – that’s ambitious perhaps – that pushes against the wind.  Everyone is welcome to continue the conversation – and of course to start topics of interest throughout the thread.  The front page will be adjusted every week to promote the latest Obama Project post.

We’ll see how it goes!

Finally – since it really is more of a blogging project than a forum effort, I’m blogging here, instead of on my main forum site.  I’ll try to RSS to WindonWater.net, just the same.

QT