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Vote No, twice, at least:
An Election Year Editorial
BY ED FELIEN, Editor/-Publisher of Southside Pride
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Cheri Honkala, Green Party candidate for Vice President, when she was fighting for the rights of homeless people to decent housing in Minneapolis 20 years ago. |
The Republican legislature proposed two amendments to the State Constitution that must be approved by the voters on Nov. 6. Both deserve to be defeated.
The first limits marriage to a man and woman. This says that same sex couples don’t deserve the same legitimacy and social approval of their loving relationship as heterosexual couples. My wife tells me that marriage is a union recognized by the state that says one partner will take care of the other partner and not leave them at a bus stop or highway rest area. It’s in our collective interest that we recognize as many of these relationships as possible. It’s far better for individuals to look out for other individuals than for the state to look out for all of us. Not granting same sex couples the same rights is discrimination. It says some couples are superior to others. It’s wrong and stupid and it should be defeated.
The second proposed amendment would require a state approved photo I D in order to vote. The reason given for passing this amendment was that it would eliminate voter fraud. But there is virtually no voter fraud in Minnesota. The real reason for this amendment was to limit the voting of senior citizens and college students. Many senior citizens no longer drive and don’t have a driver’s license or photo I D. On the first Tuesday in November most college students have just moved onto campus and they haven’t changed the address on their driver’s license, so they would be ineligible to vote. Again, this is discrimination and the amendment should be defeated.
For President? I have two adult daughters, one in North Carolina and one living in Iowa. They are both actively working for Obama. If I lived in either of those two states, I’d probably be working right alongside them. According to Nate Silver of the New York Times, Obama has a 95.6% chance of carrying Minnesota. North Carolina is tending toward Romney, and Iowa is tending toward Obama, but Minnesota is pretty much a done deal. That gives me the opportunity to vote against the things I don’t like in the Obama Presidency: the drone wars; the endless war in Afghanistan; Guantanamo; the refusal to recognize a Palestinian state; the FBI intimidation of the Anti-War movement in Minnesota; etc. I’ll be voting for Jill Stein of the Green Party for President and Cheri Honkala, Minnesota’s favorite daughter and my personal revolutionary hero, for Vice President.
The same is true for the race for the U. S. Senate. Amy Klobuchar is walking away with this race. She’s beating her opponent by more than 20 points in the last three polls, and a more recent poll show her up by almost 30 points. She doesn’t need my vote. She is responsible for enabling Obama in all the above areas with the additional caveat that she chairs the subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee that deals with the FBI so she personally supervises the harassment of the Minnesota peace movement. I’ll be voting for Northern Ireland’s gift to Powderhorn Park, an emergency room nurse and an anti-war activist, Michael Cavlan.
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