I’m actually glad I was out
of town this whole week on business. It made my denial of the election of
President Bush easier to bear. Notice I say election and not re-election since
he was not elected in 2000.

I had
to drive from Greenville to Columbia, SC on Wednesday afternoon. Usually I
listen to CDs on car trips but instead I chose to listen to NPR which I think
features the best news reporting around. They had a listener line for both
Republicans and Democrats - featuring calls from both on the election. They also
aired John Kerry’s concession speech from Boston.

It was very interesting to listen
to different people’s points of view. The Republicans were saying they were glad
that their vote for ‘morality’ was shared by their fellow Americans. One
Democrat, who I agree with totally, called in to say the vote for ‘morality’ was
an anti-abortion and anti-gay vote.

There were surveys before the
election which asked if people thought the country was better or worse off than
it was 4 years ago and people responded that it was worse off but that they were
still planning on voting for Bush. You don’t have to be an intellectual to see
that doesn’t make sense.

The
argument for Bush being elected because we shouldn’t change administrations
during a war is also flawed. It’s not like Kerry said he was going to ignore the
soldiers in Iraq and they’d be on their own if he got elected. Maybe if Bush had
a plan to win the peace instead of plowing ahead without international or United
Nations support, we wouldn’t be in the mess we’re in Iraq.

Europeans are flabbergasted, as am
I, with Bush’s election.

I looked at a county by county map
of the United States to see where Kerry did win or was close. It revealed that
counties in metropolitan areas with higher concentrations of highly educated
people went to Kerry while rural counties with lower concentrations of highly
educated people went to Bush. Looking at Atlanta, Chicago, New York, Dallas and
Los Angeles this is what I
found:

According to USA Today’s
website, in DeKalb county, Georgia where I live, of all 194 precincts reporting,
Kerry received 200,632 votes while Bush received only 73,527 votes. In Fulton
county, Georgia, where downtown Atlanta resides, of all 327 precincts reporting,
Kerry received 189,899 votes while Bush received 123,670. These two counties
make up the heart of the traditional Atlanta
area.

However, start looking
outside of a traditionally urban area like Atlanta and look at Gwinnett county,
Georgia where subdivisions thrive contributing to the urban sprawl and of all
149 precincts reporting, Kerry received 81,334 votes while Bush received 160,013
- that’s more than double the votes.

In Cook county, Illinois, the
heart of Chicago, of 5,106 precincts of 5,111 total precincts reporting, Kerry
received 1,389,631 votes while Bush received 583,774 votes. However look at a
county in that state like Adams county where Kerry received 10,467 while Bush
received 20,788.

In Manhattan
county, New York, of all 1,234 precincts reporting, Kerry received 468,841 votes
while Bush received 95,362 votes. Kerry received almost 5 times the votes that
Bush did.

In Brooklyn county, New
York, of all 2,030 precincts reporting, Kerry received 468,403 votes while Bush
received 156,612 votes.

In Queens
county, New York, of all 1,494 precincts reporting, Kerry received 393,482 votes
while Bush received 155,363
votes.

In Bronx county, New York,
of all 975 precincts reporting, Kerry received 260,438 votes while Bush received
52,752 votes.

However look at
Allegany county, New York, of all 40 precincts reporting, Kerry received 6,067
votes while Bush received 11,560
votes.

Even in Texas where you’d
think in the bigger counties Bush would have absolutely swept the election, it
was a lot closer than I would have thought. In Dallas county, Texas, of all 720
precincts reporting, Kerry received 335,871 votes while Bush received 345,482
votes - that’s about 9,600 votes.

In Harris county, Texas, of all
914 precincts reporting, Kerry received 472,320 votes while Bush received
580,553 votes. Yes Bush won but there were considerable votes for
Kerry.

In Bexar county, Texas, of
all 686 precincts reporting, Kerry received 210,354 votes while Bush received
259,762 votes. A win for Bush but not a
landslide.

In Montgomery county,
Texas we see a very different story, of all 86 precincts reporting, Kerry
received 28,561 votes while Bush received 104,361
votes.

In Los Angeles county,
California, of all 4,602 precincts reporting, Kerry received 1,670,341 votes
while Bush received 954,764 votes.

In the OC, Orange county,
California, of all 2,146 precinct reporting, Bush did win. Kerry received
300,490 votes while Bush received 455,500 votes.

In Alameda county, California, of
all 1,141 precincts reporting, Kerry received 326,675 votes while Bush received
107,489 votes.

In looking at the
votes Bush did receive, I wondered why people would vote for him. Why so many
people in rural areas put so much faith in Bush, in fighting the war of terror
and in this vote for ‘morality’?

I
think the answer is one of faith. I think there are millions of what I call
“so-called Christians” in this country. These are people that go to church every
Sunday and pronounce their Christian faith to anyone who will listen but
practice systematic discrimination and hate. If these people don’t want the
government to be involved in their lives, why do they believe it has to be so
involved in mine? It’s OK, for heterosexuals to marry but HELL NO homosexuals
can’t have that right. Let’s make sure we amend the constitutions of as many
states as possible to keep them from ever having that right.

A Republican friend of mine
attempted to appease me by making the argument that things are better for
homosexuals now than they were 4 years ago. I vehemently disagree. Yes things
were more vague 4 years ago but vague with the hope of having one’s rights
affirmed is a whole lot better than having those civil rights permanently denied
in state constitution after state constitution.

Also, he mentioned something about
Bush being willing to discuss civil unions now. I believe that is utter
nonsense. President Bush has NEVER sent a message to the American people that he
would be willing to discuss granting civil unions - in fact, quite the opposite.
Bush was one of the first who attacked the Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruling
stating the government attorneys “failed to identify any constitutionally
adequate reason” to deny homosexuals the right to marry. This ruling prompted
the following response from Bush: “Marriage is a sacred institution between a
man and a woman,” he said. “Today’s decision … violates this important
principle. I will work with congressional leaders and others to do what is
legally necessary to defend the sanctity of
marriage.”

The only way civil
unions will work is if they are the standard for legal rights and marriage is
exclusively a religious ceremony with no legal ramifications. Homosexuals demand
equal civil rights not second class rights. Separate but equal doesn’t work and
neither will civil unions unless they become the de facto standard for all not
just homosexuals.

And about the
Bush/Cheney campaign and homosexuality. How is a simple statement reminding
and/or informing the American people that Dick and Lynne Cheney’s daughter is a
lesbian such a bad thing? Mrs. Cheney said: “And the only thing I could
conclude is this is not a good man. This is not a good man. And, of course, I am
speaking as a mom and a pretty indignant mom. This is not a good man. What a cheap and tawdry political
trick.“

No Mrs. Cheney,
it is not a cheap and tawdry political trick, it is the truth. The truth is that
homosexuality is not a learned trait or a choice but an orientation. Several
extremely right wing conservatives have homosexuals in their families despite
all their attempts to enforce the Christian status quo of heterosexuality. Even
amidst strong familial and societal pressures these brave homosexuals come out
of their closets toward living an honest life instead of an accepted but
miserable one. It continues to amaze me that heterosexuals could believe that
homosexuals would choose to be homosexual. It never occurs to them that they
didn’t choose to be heterosexual but that they just are heterosexual - why would
it be different for homosexuals? I’m here to tell you it’s not different - you
just are who you are and you can’t decide who you are sexually attracted
to.

The other half of the
‘morality’ argument lies with the issue of abortion. If you don’t believe in
having an abortion, then don’t have one!

Personally, I think that abortions
should be safe, legal and rare, but it is certainly not any of my business who
has them.

One of the many things
that frightens me about Bush being elected is that during his term in office
more than one Supreme Court Justice will most likely retire. With the
Republicans controlling the House of Representatives, the Senate and the White
House they will most likely elect extremely conservative Judges. These judges
will propagate the right wing’s conservative agenda. This bothers me greatly
because of the harm they can do in setting this country’s laws back many
decades. Imagine, if you will, if ultraconservative judges had to decide on
civil rights issues back in the sixties. They will surely overturn Roe vs
Wade which is truly not a good thing.

Another topic that concerns me
greatly is this “war on terror.” On more than one occasion, Bush has slipped and
said things to the effect of the war on terror can’t be won. Of course it can’t.
Whenever you use fear to drive an attack on another country it is rooted with
problems. Need we ever forget how Adolf Hitler used fear tactics to impose his
racist and oppressive ideals on Europe? I hope
not.

The Bush family’s ties to the
Bin Laden family and to the oil in the Middle East, the fervor with which Bush
rapidly wastes this country’s tax dollars and the cowboy approach to diplomacy
he uses are all contributing to the decline of our country. His arrogance also
makes me sick to my stomach at times. You can’t just continue full steam ahead
without a plan for winning the peace but only with the notion that “we need to
kill those terrorists wherever they may be.” I’m not in anyway attempting to
defend any known terrorist but it seems to me Hitler used that same notion to
systematically exterminate millions of
people.

When President Clinton left
office the country was enjoying the highest surplus in history, over 4 trillion
dollars, but after 4 years of Bush we are now in a deficit of billions and
counting. Why do I have to balance my personal financial budget but the Bush
administration can overspend many times over with no penalty? How does he think
we will ever pay these debts? He would see our government rendered useless by a
debt burden so huge, we’d struggle to make interest payment - that is not the
answer.

You can kiss social
security goodbye and don’t ever hope to have affordable healthcare coverage.

We have alienated so much of
Europe including France and Germany. Mr. Bush, France is the country that gifted
us the Statue of
Liberty, or did you not know that? They should be an ally not a
target.

There are so many more
things that I could comment on, but won’t at this time. I’ve been so
disappointed with the results of this election. I wanted to blame Ralph Nader, but
as a friend pointed out, Nader wasn’t the problem, the problem was our fellow
Americans. Bush won this election. At the end of the day more people voted for
Bush than voted for Kerry. Now whether they voted for Bush to support the
troops, to vote against abortion, homosexual rights or because of tax cuts - I
simply don’t see how so many people thought he was the better of the two
choices.

After John Kerry conceded
the election, I felt it necessary to send a message to him personally. I let Mr.
Kerry know that I was proud that I voted for him, proud I held a debate watch
party and discussion to make people aware of the issues and proud I encouraged
people to get to the polls and vote.