A Minute Identity Crisis

What have I become? I had spent two years striving to be the most neutral person I could be, the way I learned. I was originally going to say "the way my father taught me", but looking back on things, he was just as biased with regards to politics as he was with regards to football. But that's not a bad thing, which is indeed my point here tonight.

My father taught me something when I was still a teenager, and that's something that stuck with me until recently, when it became very possible that I would indeed be able to vote in this election, and I finally started actually paying attention and taking it all in. He told me that the difference between Democrats and Republicans was that Democrats feel, while Republicans think. And, for a number of years, I agreed. I even sympathized with the election of George W. Bush to a second term, and backed a Republican candidate in the 2006 Michigan gubernatorial election, which is something I said I'd never do. (Though should Jennifer Granholm run again, I will again support a Republican.)

But that's not the point. The point is the axiom. Democrats feel, yes. That much is true. And Republicans usually do think. But they feel just as much as Democrats do. Most Republicans who toe the GOP line feel very strongly that gay marriage is an abomination. Quite a number of them also feel that just being gay is an abomination. Abortion? Stem cell research? Just about anything involving transsexuals? It's all based on feelings, for most Republicans. Hell, for most Americans.

Let me tell you something. I've read the Bible verses that are always thrown at me to defend the slipshod arguments that are always constructed, like bad prefab housing, around the idea that gay marriage and adoption shouldn't happen. And you know what? Not a single one of them matters. Because marriage in the United States is two things: a religious ceremony, one that you of a church can choose to deny a homosexual couple, and a legal contract, which none of you has any right to deny any person. And that's a lesson that California could stand to learn.

But I digress. My main point? There's so much less different between any two Americans than people would like to admit. I started struggling to get by in 2005, about a month after George W. Bush was inaugurated a second time. I'll still be struggling to get by in January 2009, when President-elect Barack Obama is inaugurated. And I have this little inkling in the back of my mind that in 2013, when my first child will be three, almost four (the age I was way back in 1991), I'll still be struggling to get by. And so will everyone else who's struggling to get by now. Because Barack Obama can't change the world. He'll have a hard time changing America's mind about whether or not two men have the right to visit each other in the hospital.

And you and me? We're not that different after all. You're a living, breathing, human being (at least, I hope so), and so am I. I do my best to work for a living and put food on the table for my fiancée and future child, and indeed, to even make sure that we can sit at that table every night. And I'd be willing to bet, so do you. In fact, the way I see it, George W. Bush does the same thing. Sure, he may not need to pull that 40+ a week, the way you or I do, but he does it anyway. And he may not need to do it to make sure his wife and daughters eat every night, but the fact that he still works for a living, and still spends his money on his family, makes him the same as all the rest of us.

And that's the way it's going to be for a long, long time.