I’m Voting Obama, No On Measure 8

October 31st, 2008

So there’s this election next week. I doubt readers of this blog care how I’m going to vote, and I don’t normally write about politics, so I’ll just keep this short.

Obama for President

• The Economist endorsement I largely agree with.
• Obama grew up in Hawaii and I attended the same highschool. He hails from a multicultural, diverse background which is the inevitable future of this nation.
• He has shown a remarkable steadfastness and determination. Although he doesn’t have much government experience, the way he has run his campaign over the past nearly two years has been impressive — he dispatched the Clinton machine and is on the verge of defeating the Republican one as well.
• Obama stayed on the message of “change” while his opponents applied “change” to their messages, redefining themselves every few weeks.
• He knows how to leverage technology, organizing a masterful “crowd” network over the internet. I mean, the guy has a freaking iPhone App.

As for John McCain. there are two big negatives:

• The financial crisis and bad economy is bad news for the incumbent party.
• His VP pick of Palin emphasizes aspects of the Republican party I can least relate to. Imagine if he had chosen Romney or Bloomberg, either of whom have much more financial experience. His VP pick shows poor judgement on his part.

So I’m voting for Obama. I can’t say I’m totally convinced he’ll achieve all that he promises, but at least I have hope. That alone is more than I can say about McCain.

No on Measure 8

Here in California there is a measure banning gay marriage, essentially defining it as between a man and a woman. The wording is a little tricky — a “yes” vote means you want to ban gay marriage, and “no” means you support gay marriage. That alone could cause this measure to pass.

Anyhow, I see gay marriage as a civil rights issue. I have always been disturbed how interracial marriages were once outlawed in many states. I’m Japanese American and my wife is of German / Finnish descent.

Today we look back on those that supported segregation and wonder how they could be so closed-minded. I hope in fifty years we’ll look back on gay marriage and think much the same thing.

Several Silicon Valley companies — Apple, Yahoo!, and Google among them — support a “no” vote on this measure.

At the end of Guess Who’s Coming To Dinner, Spencer Tracy, delivers a thoughtful monologue about the prospect of his daughter marrying an African-American:

“In the final analysis it doesn’t matter a damn what we think. The only thing that matters is what they feel, and how much they feel, for each other … there’ll be 100 million people right here in this country who will be shocked and offended and appalled and the two of you will just have to ride that out, maybe every day for the rest of your lives. You could try to ignore those people, or you could feel sorry for them and for their prejudice and their bigotry and their blind hatred and stupid fears, but where necessary you’ll just have to cling tight to each other and say ‘screw all those people’!”

“Anybody could make a case, a hell of a good case, against your getting married. The arguments are so obvious that nobody has to make them … I think that now, no matter what kind of a case some bastard could make against your getting married, there would be only one thing worse, and that would be if — knowing what you two are and knowing what you two have and knowing what you two feel– you didn’t get married.”

If two people love each other, and want to be united in marriage despite societal pressure that will make their lives very difficult — they must really love each other. That’s worth celebrating and encouraging. It’s really none of my business that they happen to be of the same gender.