Reach For Those Ankles, America

There I was, before dawn and first in line to vote, beating the next type-anal personality to show by fifteen minutes. The day before I studied a sample ballot our precinct would be using on the internet. I looked for a token Republican to vote for, so as not to be a complete, how do you say, hack. Finding none, I voted a straight ticket. Well, a straight ticket may not be the best way to put it since I voted against Prop 2, the anti-civil rights amendment. I stabbed the "no" box over and over, like Andrew Cunanan.

I walked home, carrying the dawn's early light on my back. For the next sixteen hours I lived within the possibility--probabilty of--a Bush defeat. It was a fun place. Great drinks, and that Sandra Bernhardt is hilarious.

Then, a little before midnight, the claustrophobia of reality set in. Ohio fell. Kerry won among moderates and independents, while minorities and the under thirties turned out for him by record margins. But. Evangelicals turned out for Bush in numbers that can only be attained by people who take the bible literally and reality figuratively. Exit polling revealed the issues that brought voters out to be, no, not Iraq, the economy or terrorism--sane guesses all--but "moral values." Yes! That is a phrase that must quiver in scare quotes! "Moral values." Read: gay-baiting. During a time of war, record federal deficits and an anemic economy, it was a six to ten percent minority of the country, asking for equal protection under the law, that motivated the Christian right to vote Bush. Those guys have had a problem with the 14th amendment for some time.

By the wee small hours, here in Michigan, and in ten other states, I and millions others had less rights than when we did at dinner. I was surprised at how much this really hurt. Normally, homophobia can easily be dispensed with my making fun of the homophobe's personal hygine, or lack thereof. But there is no snappy rejoinder to tens of millions of people elevating their personal disgust of you to the level of a constitutional amendment. Mac called to commiserate. It was appreciated.

The center of political gravity keeps moving rightward in this country. These evangelicals love to get lathered up over issues of symbolic importance--if that. Witness the panty-bunching surrounding the Ten Commandments, the pledge, and gay rights. But to those on the receiving end, these issues are anything but symbolic. A fifty year-old pro-lifer with a dormant dick has little at stake in the abortion issue, but for the scared seventeen year-old who might need one and desperate to get one under any circumstances, the issue is not theological. The suburban mom who goes to church multiple times a week gains nothing and loses nothing by a gay couple being able to share insurance, inheritance, custody and other rights. Yet she gets to decide whether the the constitution will be applied to them or if it will be rewritten to exclude them. Two cheers for democracy.

You can't argue with these people, because, see, it's in the bible. Even if, of course, it isn't. Like Thomas Jefferson--or was it Wheezy Jefferson?--one day I'll make my own bible. I'll include recipes, political screeds by Arundhati Roy, some Maplethorpe photos and a multiplication table, on thin gold-leaf paper and bind it in red leather. Proverbs 14:23 will read

"Shove it up your ass; you may enjoy it."

Bush has a mandate. He won it by stoking hysteria--vote for Kerry and the trrrrrists will 'splode you!--while pandering to bigotry--and he will make you touch a wiener! Lagging the country's lagging indicators, now that's leadership. It's the kind of leadership that this country deserves, good and hard. Reach for those ankles, America. I thought four years of George W. Putin-ism would be enough to bankrupt it, but it looks like it will take eight, and will bankrupt the republic in the process.

I've taken to wearing a Dukakis-Bentson button. Apropos, no? I'm wearing headphones a lot too, I can't be alone with my thoughts too much these days.