Wednesday, March 3, 2004

An Editorial: What about our rights?

Is this how 2,000 years of cultural history gets trashed? Without any of us ordinary citizens getting even one chance to vote whether to keep traditional marriage as is or to “redefine” civilized society’s most basic unit?

When the Georgia House of Representatives failed to muster a two-thirds majority to give us a vote on the “right” of homosexual marriage last week, one can only wonder whatever happened to the rights of the vast majority of the rest of us.

While the gay activists and their chief advocate in this state, The Atlanta-Journal Constitution, cry about their new-found “right” to same-sex marriage, the rest of us may lose another fundamental right: The democratic right to cast our ballots for or against this crucial issue.

While the Democrats and the Black Caucus in Atlanta rail about protecting this newly-invented “civil right,” the rest of Georgia helplessly watches our voting rights ripped away.

The so-called Democratic Party apparently does not trust Georgians enough to let them vote on their own constitution. The so-called Democrats deny to us the very right to govern ourselves.

Instead, they hand off the future of marriage to faceless, legislating, activist judges who fancy themselves “progressive” and who likely will invent out of thin air “rights” never imagined by the framers of our governing document.

And why this sudden Democratic Party protectiveness for our state constitution? In November 2002, Georgians got to vote on no less than six constitutional amendments, including the paramount issue of sterilizing stray animals to prevent overpopulation of unwanted dogs and cats.

What kind of caucus, what kind of political party can assure that we all get to vote on authorizing a new vehicle license plate to raise money for spaying pets but then withholds from us the right to vote on the definition of marriage?

Is spaying strays more important than traditional marriage?

By the way, that supremely important amendment passed, 71 percent to 29 percent. Of the six amendments offered to the voters, we approved four of them, less than two years ago.

But in the name of one brand-new “right,” all of us lowly voters now face having our voting rights taken away.

The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., would be appalled that the very people who benefitted from his struggle and martyrdom are now the very ones who are denying every voter in this state that most basic right of democracy: The right to vote.

Thus, we say to our African-American legislators, to the Black Caucus and to the so-called Democratic Party what they themselves once cried out with fervent conviction:

Let your people vote!