Wow what a night!
I was up until very late watching the returns - to no avail. The Franken and Coleman race looks like it's headed for an automatic recount - Coleman having apparently won by a mere 727 votes out of almost 3 million casts, - about .03% of the vote! The Oregon and Alaska races were also unresolved. Overall, it was a great night, but there were also a few significant disappointments.
Here in Minnesota, in addition to Obama not being able to carry Franken to a win,
Michele "Joseph McCarthy" Bachmann of Hardball fame was actually reelected. Pretty embarrassing, but thankfully she is not my representative. My representative is Keith Elison - a black Muslim, which tells you how liberal Minneapolis is.
It's looking like Senator Stevens is going to be reelected in Alaska - probably the first time a convicted felon has been reelected to the United States Senate (although I haven't checked).
By far however, the most disappointing result of the night was the approval of prop. 8 in California. That a state which overwhelmingly favored the election of the first African American POTUS, choose to deny a group of people important rights and privileges enjoyed by the rest of society based on an inherent condition is disappointing to say the least. I have yet to hear a coherent argument that explains how allowing same sex couples to have the same rights and privileges granted to my wife and I would threaten or demean my marriage. On a night in which all Americans can celebrate how far we have come we were reminded that we still have a ways to go.
Indeed, one of the thing that I find most striking about the debate over same sex marriage we have been having in this country over the past few election cycles is how closely it mirrors the debate we had in this country fifty years ago over interracial marriage. On one side there were those arguing that people should not be denied the basic civil right of marriage based on the color of their skin. On the other side were those trying to protect "traditional marriage." They argued that god had created and segregated the races and it was essentially a sin to allow interracial marriage. Then, as now, my church, the LDS Church, was an active participant in the debate. For example, here is an excerpt from a speech given by Mark E. Peterson, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, in August of 1954 at a Convention of Teachers of Religion on the College Level at BYU:
"Now we are generous with the Negro. We are willing that the Negro have the highest education. I would be willing to let every Negro drive a Cadillac if they could afford it. I would be willing that they have all the advantages they can get out of life in the world. But let them enjoy those things among themselves. I think the Lord segregated the Negro and who is man to change that segregation? It reminds me of the scripture on marriage, "what God hath joined together, let not man put asunder." Only here we have the reverse of the thing -- what God hath separated, let not man bring together again."
Eventually, the issue of the legality of interracial marriage was resolved in 1967, by the landmark Supreme Court case of
Loving v. Virginia. The case involved a black woman and white man who had married in Washington D.C. but were living in Virginia. At the time there were statutes in Virginia (and other states) that prohibited marriage between whites and blacks (usually anyone either 1/8, 1/16 or more). Here is a quote from that case,
"Marriage is one of the 'basic civil rights of man,' fundamental to our very existence and survival...To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State's citizens of liberty without the due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State."
One of the most under-reported aspects of yesterday's presidential election was the Supreme Court. McCain had committed to appointing Justices like Alito and Roberts, which would have produced a dramatic and tragic shift from the current center-right Court to an extreme right Court. While it is always preferable that people simply not use religion to excuse bigotry, I am thankful that our system of government, especially our judicial system is designed to protect the rights of minorities - ethnic and otherwise. I look forward to the day when bans on same sex marriage are viewed the same way the vast majority of Americans would now view a ban on interracial marriage.
Two months after Loving v. Virginia was decided, Barack Obama, the child of an interracial marriage, turned six years old. Last night he was elected 44th President of the United States. While the passage of prop. 8 in California was disappointing, there is hope.
