Regarding your editorial, “Nouveau Jim Crow,” the idea of the “many” deciding the rights of the “few” is what’s wrong in this little democratic experiment. The thought of the general public getting to vote on who shall be equal is, as the article says so beautifully, hypocrisy. If all are not equal, then none is equal. Question: when can we stop calling same-sex nuptials in Massachusetts “gay marriage” and start calling them simply “marriage”? Only then will equality set in, and not before. It’s a long road for us. Next stop, New York.
A.C. Chamuris
Woodside, New York
And you call Republicans and conservatives vicious and unscrupulous! Karl Rove can’t hold a candle to you guys. First it’s “neuter (not defeat or upset) the Republicans” as a cover story. Now you put a Klansman over the headline NOUVEAU JIM CROW, which, of course, implies that anyone not in favor of gay marriage is a — what did you say? — cracker? Does that now include the judges on the state supreme courts of Georgia and New York, who just struck down challenges to ballot measures in their states preserving heterosexual marriage? Should they all wear hoods now?
That visual is an insult to every African-American who suffered under real Jim Crow laws, with separate water fountains, restrooms, bus seats, restaurants, ad infinitum. What gays have to suffer those indignities in today’s America?
As for epithets, which are the last refuge of scoundrels, how would you like it if someone said, “People for gay marriage are all fags, dykes, fudgepackers, rugmunchers and Nancy boys,” huh? Because people around the country want to preserve the sanctity of marriage between a man and a woman as an elemental and critical foundation of family and society, you monger fear and hate against them? So much for reasoned debate.
All Karl Rove has to do to ensure Republican victories is point to guys like you and say, “You want them running things?”
John Simpson
Nashua, New Hampshire
Everyone who agrees say aye
Adam Reilly’s title (“Who’s The Real Dem?”) says it all. Lapdog Lynch is just another rubber stamp for the Bush agenda. He supports Republican policies and just last month voted for “Stay the Course” HR 861 against all the other members of the Massachusetts delegation. The Democratic platform supports women’s right to choose, as does Phil Dunkelbarger; Lynch does not support women’s rights. I’m fed up with his incompetent record. The Ninth District needs Phil Dunkelbarger, a real Dem.
Linda Hickey
Stoughton
The Iraq war is the defining issue, because it’s the tip of the iceberg supported by all the other crucial issues: the power grabs of 2000, 2002, and 2004; the transformation from 9/11 into a worldwide Cold War; the collapse of the Democratic Party as an effective opposition; the loss of civil liberties; the end of government accountability; you could go on and on. The cowardice and aloof professionalism of the Democratic Party in the face of this ongoing crisis are what’s driving people to despair. Every campaign that tilts the balance of power back to normal is important. Here in the Ninth District we have a chance to do something concrete, and to elect a congressman who actually speaks intelligently about political realities. The fact that we have only an outside chance of doing so shows how decadent our democracy has become.
