Two last election anecdotes

Politics makes for strange bedfellows

A friend from Manhattan told me Monday about people he knows who were canvassing for the Working Families Party in a “bad” neighbourhood, and were surrounded by a gang. They demanded to know who they were working for, and his friends explained that they were supporting Kerry for President and various community activists for local positions. “Oh, ok”, said the main thug. “If you were working for Bush we’d beat the crap out of you, but all the gangs, the Bloods, the Crips, all of us are united for Kerry.” And then, they let them go.

Bedfellows make for strange politics

By now you’ve likely heard that voters in eleven states have expressly and decisively chosen to make it impossible to grant partnership rights to same sex couples in their jurisdictions. Worse, some of these statutes actively forbid to varying degrees any recognition of these partnerships, which could mean that companies wouldn’t be able to offer insurance benefits to partners of some employees, for example. The most odious of these implications will likely be eventually defeated in court, such as the attempt in Tennessee to pass a law stating that “If [homosexuals are] caught in Rhea County living together as such, that they be tried for crimes against nature.” Just one more reason to be glad I didn’t grow up anywhere close to the southern US.