Washington State on Gay Rights
We got the news last Friday that the State of Washington finally passed some gay-rights legislation that has been pending since forever. This is the same bill that lost last year by one vote, which loss was thought to be spurred by Microsoft's taking its support away from the bill — and that action was laid at the feet of a few wacko bible-thumpers and the advice of Ralph Reed, who was being paid an enormous retainer at the time to give bad advice to Microsoft. Fortunately, there was a mini-scandal and Reed was cut loose for reasons claimed at the time to have absolutely nothing to do with the mini-scandal. How interesting it is now, at this remove, to see that Jack Abramoff was mentioned in the same news story that talked about the Reed situation.
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer article has a good account of the lone Republican who changed his vote between last year and this year to make the win possible. He'd finally realized that perhaps beating up on gay and lesbian people because of who they love might not be all that great an idea. He was not praised, of course, by his fellow Republicans who offered their own opinions about how the bible says it's all wrong and — you just wait and see! — it's the first step on a slipperly slope to something. Why, soon gays and lesbians will start to feel like full citizens or something.
Intellectually, I'd really like to feel motivated to cheer and hoot for this little crumb of equality, but I find myself feeling very much in the "it's about time" camp instead. Perhaps I'm finally of an age where I just don't feel like waiting for obviously right things any more.