Primary Elections

There are two big races in the primaries in the part of Arizona where I live. One is the governor's race. There are several Republican candidates vying to face Democrat incumbent Janet Napolitano in the Nov. 7 general election. Frankly, I don't like any of them. I haven't decided which one to vote for in the primary, but I'm almost certain to vote for Napolitano in the general election. She's a moderate, she's vetoed a ton of really scary bills from our really scary legislature, and she's been good for the state.

The race I'm really not sure about is Congressional District 8, currently held by the retiring Jim Kolbe. I love Jim Kolbe, at least as much as I can love any politician, and I'm bitterly sorry to see him go. He's a moderate conservative in a time when conservativism has run amok. Naturally, there are a lot of people running for his seat on both the Democrat and Republican side. I can't vote in the Democratic primary, so I haven't really taken a good look at those candidates (although I used to work with former news anchor Patty Weiss, so I'm curious about her campaign). On the Republican side, I've narrowed it down to two: Mike Hellon and Steve Huffman. Huffman has Kolbe's endorsement, which says something to me, but I really like some of the things Hellon has said about the dangers of basing laws on religion. I haven't decided which one I like better. Or really, as is usually the case, which one I hate least. What I really wish is that there was an "Anybody but Randy Graf" option. The thought of him as our congressman makes by blood curdle.

In other news, I wanted to call attention to two recent editorials I really liked. One was from my favorite, Leonard J. Pitts, on Biblical literalism and how impossible it really is. Amen, Leonard! The other is on why Prop. 107 (the marriage amendment) is such a bad idea. Writer Dr. Ivy Schwartz really nailed it.

It's about civil rights

This video is fantastic! Warning for some bad language. Also, I'd qualify what he says about Christian marriage with "in SOME Christian churches" and I'd point out that in most places gay marriage is already illegal, so what he's really talking about is constitutionalizing the ban against gay marriage, but otherwise I couldn't agree with him more.

If you can create a law that enforces your system of morality, then you can create a law that enforces someone else's system of morality. If you create the precedent now, you're gonna see it again. Right now we're banning gay marriage. Tomorrow we're banning church. The law is identical.