Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Sad blogging

I'm feeling sad today, so no blogging till mañana.

No, it's not just because Rep. Patrick Rose, D-Dripping Springs, whose campaigns I helped in 2002 and 2004, voted for this piece of homophobic garbage.

Ironically, the other state representative whose general election campaign I helped in 2004, Rep. Ray Allen, R-Grand Prairie, voted against banning gay people from becoming foster parents, so by working for the anti-abortion Republican, I kept my homophobia quotient to just 50%, I guess is the good news. But no, that's not why I'm sad. It's personal. I won't tell you.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

hope ya feel better soon, grits.

Adina said...

It is depressing that the legislature can cheerfully pass legislation that harms an unpopular minority, and will pull 1200 kids out of caring homes. :-(

It is scary that there is a concerted campaign to reduce the ability of the courts to protect minorities against the prejudices of the majority.

Commiseration re: whatever else.

imasuit said...

Sorry to hear that Scott. Hope you feel better.

All the best

Catonya said...

sorry to hear you're down. hope things are better soon.

Gritsforbreakfast said...

Thanks a lot, folks. Though Mark, I gotta tell you, I'm glad for Connecticut, but Texas has counties bigger than that state, both in size and population. (What are Luxembourg's policies, I wonder? I kid because I love.) We've got a lot of gay folks down here who might be looking at some really regressive legislation soon. To my mind, this was the most disgraceful one so far, but it could and in the short term predictably will get worse.

Can you tell how much I've cheered up? ;-)

Gritsforbreakfast said...

That WAS a little painful, Sarah, but much deserved. I'll reserve final judgment to review his overall session record before deciding get off his train altogether, but he'd better start casting some DAMN GOOD votes to keep me on board.

The problem with this vote is that it's sort of a "have you stopped beating your wife yet?"-type of question. Either he's a bigot, or he's cynically pandering to bigotry he thinks appeals to voters in his district. The alternatives are as inescapable as they are unflattering. There's not one good thing in that amendment to hang your hat on, nothing that helps anybody -- it's just an indefensible, mean-spirited piece of junk.

Politically, it's the equivalent of supporting Strom Thurmond for president in the '40s. In the long run he'll have no choice but to openly recant and apologize, call it a "youthful indiscretion," and move on. After Lawrence, he's standing against the tide of history.