Today, just about every other headline in the local daily pertains to Amendment One. My favorite thing about the legislation is the way I keep hearing people say really strange stuff about it. Last night, I learned the amendment was three pages long, and it really had a lot of pith. I looked again, and only found one sentence of amendment and a few other sentences about balloting. This morning, I listened to a kid relate all the dreadful things his teacher had told him would happen to kids of single moms as a result; and after work, I listened to somebody talk about how people would no longer be able to cosign private contracts unless they were married. Fortunately, the people doing research for Rush Limbaugh seemed to agree with what I found.
The misinformation wasn’t really expected, but the backlash, either way, was. A lot of the headlines pertain to plans for marches and civil disobedience. Over at the Mountain Xpress, Max Cooper had some splainin’ to do. Blogger Thunderpig had asked how two MX reporters just happened to be out in the street at midnight to catch a spontaneous march. Whether or not you buy the excuse, the article is a refreshing dose of honesty, and a primer on basic politics well worth the read. Cooper captured my sentiments about the amendment well, so I shall lift a hefty chunk of the music to my ears and refer the reader to the rest:
What is a law, if not an abstract bond made of pure nothing? All the work and strife on both sides of Amendment One was expended just to change some words around on a piece of paper. Politicians, therefore, are salespeople whose product is nothing. And while the best, most honest transactions benefit both parties, every deal benefits the seller. Otherwise, he wouldn’t sell.
I suspect folks on both sides are waking up this morning and finding their lives for the most part unchanged. The winners will soon learn that their victory is hollow, and the losers will discover that their plight is status quo: Gay people still can’t get married, but they can still be gay all over the place, and there’s not a d****d thing anybody can do about it.
So if neither customer bought a worthy product, who profited from the sale?
