Click images for desktop size: "Untitled" by Clarence Holbrook Carter Back in the 80's there was a proposition that got on the California ballot.
Lets call it Proposition H. That wasn't its name but I can't remember the number it had, something innocuous enough. Numbers make even great evil seem innocuous.
Even the Holocaust - 25 million murdered dead is a number that can't convey the sheer terror that a picture of one Holocaust survivor carries, or the sickening horror of one of those blurry black and white mass graves of Auschwitz. Numbers, the great concealers.
Anyway, this Proposition was repellent to the max. It called for all homosexuals to register with the state. It required that no homosexual be allowed to teach in schools or reside in areas where they weren't wanted.
Basically it stopped short of demanding that homosexuals wear a branded H on their foreheads and being tattooed with ID numbers. It stopped short barely.
Of course everyone was pretty outraged that this proposition could ever make it on the ballot. The only ones supporting it where those scary "Deliverance" "The Hills Have Eyes" looking kind of guys who live out in China Lake, the Salton Sea or the Orange County. They supported it loud. Lots of badly designed bill boards and fliers on windshields.
A lot of the TV preachers were all for it too. "The bible says Adam and Eve not Adam and Adam! Send me your money," sort of stuff. TV preachers have to make a living too.
All the papers will filled with editorials screaming about the insanity of the proposition and proclaiming that even if passed it would surely die in the Supreme Court.
The people standing up for it were scary looking, physically scary looking. White Supremacists, anti-semites, NRA proponents. If you weren't that scary looking and stood up for it, for whatever reason
Click images for desktop size: "Marilyn Monroe - Bus Stop" you got thrown into the mix and branded a good looking lunatic.
Even Wally George (Rebecca DeMornay's dad) who had a right wing UHF TV show where he had guests on so he could insult them and belittle them, steered clear of this topic. He was notoriously anti-gay but even this guy who was known to do anything to attract attention was noticeable in his silence.
The polls showed that the proposition didn't have a chance to pass. I think at one time its showed 88% against and 12% for with no undecideds. Everybody had an opinion and only a nut bar fringe weren't on the side of the angels.
Come election day a funny thing happened. The exit polls showed the proposition dying, but when the votes started to get counted . . . the first numbers showed that about 20% of the ballots did not vote on the proposition. Early counts showed the proposition passing.
Eventually it failed by something like 50.5% to 49.5%. When the curtain was pulled in the voting booth I guess the monster comes out. Or maybe its just the anonymity factor. You wouldn't want anybody to know you're a homophobe racist but if no one knows . . . and remember that gay guy who snickered at you at the Beverly Design Center?
It didn't pass but it nearly did. Oddly it was the precincts that were predominantly Hispanic, Korean and Chinese and the large west side Jewish areas in LA that were over whelmingly against it, that made the final decision. I guess if I was of the ilk that would approve of this kind of stuff I could concoct a nice nasty theory about those would be the type of people who'd stick up for human rights and gays.
But it nearly passed. It nearly became law.
Since then I really don't trust polls.
And I'm perplexed that Sarah Palin is still being allowed to run for Vice President and that no one is screaming for her head or calling her a terrorist. She gave a tightly controlled interview where the
Click images for desktop size: "Black Mesa" by Unknown press were only allowed to ask one question. A phone interview that was filtered and time delayed. No follow-up. Tame reporters.
Palin was found by an independent investigator to have abused her oath of office. Palin says she was found innocent of all charges . . . Which is pretty insane on the surface of it. Maybe she is that loony or maybe she's illiterate and her husband and her husband, the vice governor it seems, read her a heavily edited version. But she reads teleprompters so well. . . So she must be insane.
I could have accepted an apology. Like, "In the concern for my sister I allowed my judgement to become clouded to the point where I behaved poorly and allowed my staff to behave poorly. If it were not for the deep love I have for my family this terrible situation would never have happened. I fired Walter, which I had a right to do even with bad or even no cause, I stand by that decision as being in the best interest of my constituents. I will make the emails that I tried to conceal from my constituents available and they will show that I focused the largest body of my work for the betterment of the people of Alaska. I am sorry I have besmirched my record of good work with this petty squabbling that I allowed to get out of control."
Instead she ignores it. No, she insists it never happened. That she is clear and blameless, despite the evidence. Her support group says the report doesn't call for criminal prosecution so its nothing to worry about or discuss.
The polls show Palin is losing favor. So is McCain. I figure they're counting on the cowardly racism that nearly passed Proposition H. I fear we will have an enraged president who betrayed his fellow soldiers and his country for President.
Then we will have a vice president who might one day be president who has shown her racism and deep set beauty queen neurosis (fear of lack of perfection) that will turn to psychosis with the addition of power. They'll protect the rich whites and let the rest of us go to hell while China might decide its time to act on Mao's plan to conquer America when we are weak and divided. Ripe for the picking.