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The Triumph and Failure of Democracy.
In one extraordinary night the American people and the world have been shown the triumph of democracy in the election of the son of a Kenyan goatherd to the most powerful post in the world, and the squalid limits of the democratic process in the removal of a minority's basic human rights by an ill informed and hoodwinked majority. In Barack Obama's case the people chose brilliance and inspiration over fear and prejudice, in the case of California it now seems that the success of the infamous Proposition 8 was largely carried by communities that were ill served by their faith leaders. It is a horrible irony to see an African American electorate that rightly led the call for civil rights now effectively saying "Only my civil rights! Not yours!"
When the care and nurture of human rights are concerned, the will of the majority has proved an unsatisfactory pair of hands. Switzerland is arguably the most democratic country in the world- huge numbers of issues are put to plebiscite every year - the will of the majority almost always rules. A consequence of this is that in certain Swiss cantons, women were not given the vote until the 1970's! How many optimists think that the Deep South would have voted for desegregation in the 1960's? If it had not of been for LBJ and the supreme court, Apartheid would probably have lingered in many states for decades longer - maybe even to the present day. If Mississippi, for example, had been allowed to pass an amendment to their constitution outlawing interracial marriage the nation would look very different, it would be a patchwork of elected bigotry; sometimes the people need a strong example of what is right and what is wrong from leaders who have troubled themselves to become informed on the subject. The LGBT minority in the USA thinks deeply about issues of love, marriage, childcare and faith as it affects them - we cannot expect heterosexuals unaffected by those issues to think as deeply, therefore their opinion is often knee-jerk, or simply the regurgitation of what a bigoted pastor or ignorant parent has told them. In the case of California it was the product of a truly wicked program of misinformation and fear mongering bankrolled by the Mormon Church; sooner or later that organization is going to have to answer for its very public stand against equality. It has set itself against the flow of history and justice, and that is always a path to disaster and historical isolation.
Democracy works best when it is ordered toward a common goal - such as electing a leader who is required to serve all voters irrespective of race, sex, orientation or faith. It works worst when it is asked to make decisions that rely upon some sort of specialized knowledge - for example, the reality of life in segregated America as an African American, or the reality of life in 2008 as an LGBT person; a person who is treated as a second or third class citizen despite being expected to pay the same taxes and abide by the same laws.
As no major political figure had the guts to stand up and say why the voters of California needed to reject prejudice, the campaign was always fighting with a disadvantage; in reality the popular vote is not the way to go with this campaign. This is a matter of America gradually finding out what the consequences are of having equality enshrined in its constitution. It took until the 1950's and 60's to discover that equality applied to people of color. It seems it is taking till the first decades of the 21st century to discover that we too are fully human, and our equality should not depend upon the whims of any set of voters - it has already been set in the foundations of The United States of America. It is about time we as a people were ready to claim what is rightfully ours. We should not beg or plead, just quietly and firmly demand what is already ours by right.
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