Yeah…What Keith Olbermann Said

The day after the presidential election, America woke up with a hangover: the realization that, despite taking a giant step forward in living up to the founding ideals of this nation by electing our first African-American president, California took a step back. Prop 8 passed with a not-so-narrow margin, banning gay marriage in one of the bluest states in the US.

Having grown up in California, I was more than surprised–and more than disappointed. But after reading about it, some of the pieces started to come together; it’s been inferred that Black and Latino voters, many of whom are strongly religious, came out to vote for a minority president and, while they were there, ticked “yes” on Prop 8.

IF this inference is accurate, that means these people are voting for all the wrong reasons, namely they want a minority in the White House simply because they too are minorities, and they want gay marriage banned because it aligns with their personal faith (a faith, I might add, that most people in this country do not share). If these people really voted for Barack Obama because they favored his ideals over McCain’s, wouldn’t they also support gay marriage? Sweeping generalizations aside, it just seems odd that a voter or group of voters would vote for one of the most liberal members of Congress, but vote “yes” on a ban on gay marriage, IF they weren’t making their decisions based on petty bias.

These two groups have been treated as second class citizens for decades. By voting for Prop 8, they hypocritically passed that hate onto another group.

I could go on, but Keith Olbermann expresses it much more eloquently than I ever could. Watch the video while I go hit things.