Good morning peeps!
With less than 24 hours to go before voting starts in earnest, I'm sitting here in my apartment having sporadic anxiety attacks at the mere thought of a Romney presidency. Yes, he could win. And if he does, what does that mean for us?
Well, aside from having someone in the White House who has sent jobs to China, someone who won't disclose his tax records OR his plans for the economy and has a dismal view of the little wimmins who shouldn't get equal pay for equal work because they should be at home frying up burgers for their husbands and children, the prospects for LGBT Americans are grim indeed.
Not only would we have an even tougher battle adding new states for Marriage Equality, it's quite probable that Mr. Romney would add a Constitutional amendment banning same sex marriages altogether. Sure, there would be legal battles but those would drag out for years but ultimately Romney would play on Americans' worst preconceptions about us and this would almost certainly pass.
I assume that other rights that we now take for granted - like being able to adopt and teach would fly out the window too. This would be sold to the American public as "gay men are predatory, we must stop them from being around children". It's the same tired song we've heard for decades (and it's not even true outside of Catholic priests and Michael Jackson).
While "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" has been repealed, we surely would find ourselves losing ground in the fight to stay in the military with some new legislation that would ban us.
And since our queer bookstores are gone, say goodbye to enlightening future generations about the struggles we went through and because our gay bars have diminished in number and those that are left have been invaded by bachelotte parties, say hello to a gay life led exclusively online. This is a boon for Scruff, Grindr and Manhunt, but a disaster for the rest of us who want to actually talk to people we sleep with.
And let's talk about the internet. Since Romney wants to privatize everything else from disaster relief to medical assistance, what's to stop him from finding a way to monetize the internet to favor his cronies in big business and make net neutrality a thing of the past? And Romney has made no secret that he would crack down on pornography in all it's delivery forms.
And say goodbye to people like Harvey Milk in school history books - if you think that's an exaggeration, try finding Darwin/evolution in science textbooks in certain areas of the country.
As Romney was a bully himself in his youth, can you really see him enforcing hate crimes against us in the LGBT community? Can you see his administration funding gay orgs devoted to prevent bullying from happening? I can't.
But probably the biggest life threatening problem would come from a Romney administration cutting health benefits to those of lower income who depend on ADAP (AIDS Drug Assistance Program) to stay alive. This would be a serious crisis for the thousands of men and women who cannot afford these drugs any other way. To those of you who believe AIDS is over - it's not. It's just muted. And that's because the drugs are effective (thank you ACT UP for making that happen!) and available.
I'm pretty sure that I attract a fairly progressive readership and I'm happy about that. For me, progressive views (in recent years described as 'libtard' in some circles) are the most Christian and most humane. We tend to actually care what happens to others because we understand that what happens to one of us, happens to all of us. That's not socialism, that's just common sense.
Now, granted, all these things outlined above aren't exclusive to a Romney presidency. While the President has come a long way over the past four years and some of the issues here (such as reduced funding of ADAP) could happen regardless of who is in the White House... but these are scenarios that are assured of happening should Mr. Romney win tomorrow. And these aren't esoteric scenarios.. these are all completely easy for an incoming president to enact. And as the Republican party has been gearing up for four years for this, you'd better believe this would all happen within weeks, not months after a January swear-in.
Many have voted already and the rest of us will vote tomorrow, Tuesday November 6th.
Vote wisely!
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