Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Demonstrating Political Activism... Later

Yesterday morning I started brainstorming a post about political activism because a tweet from Dan Savage (the wonderful man who years ago defined the noun, santorum) informed me that the Washington State Senate was only 2 votes shy of a 25 vote majority in favor of legalizing gay marriage. The house already had the votes and it was the Governor's idea in the first place, so a half dozen hand-wringing state senators were all that stood in the way of Washington becoming the 7th state to legalize gay marriage. Well not really seventh, because states can drop off the list, but still, out of 50 that is none too shabby.

I use the past tense because before I had even finished my coffee one of the undecided senators came out in favor and before I started typing it another had done so. There was a real groundswell immediately after local media* reported how close we are and it disseminated though the internet. Two senators changed their position at the behest of thier constituents within hours of being identified. Those of you with the attitude that politicians don't care what you think are right; they don't care what you think because you are not politically active. They can be influenced, as the SOPA/PIPA strike (in which I participated in my own snarky way) and our state's push for marriage equality demonstrates. You just have to be politically active... and a little quicker on the draw than me, apparently.

We will have our own Prop 8 like thing to deal with. I will be writing about that, and about how you can get involved.

Don't forget to watch the State of the Union tonight. What channel is it on? I don't know, I have the internet.

* "local media" means internet media focused on Washington and Seattle. The local TV "News" can't seem to seem to talk about anything other than snow



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