Doomed to Repeat It?

There are days when I actually don't mind living in California.

The good weather, the lack of pollution and traffic.

Well, one out of three isn't bad.

But this one really sorta makes my day.

It's not that I'm an ultra-liberal, left-winging my way in a blue-state bastion of radicalism. I'm reasonably far from it. I don't like paying my taxes, but I don't mind them either, and pooling all that funding which keeps my streets paved, relatively free from debris and refuse, and somewhat crime relieved is a pretty good thing. I'm not a rah-rah military interventionist, but I do see the benefit a few good men and women heavily armed and well-trained.

Still, the intervention of the puritanical, ultra-conservative Christian right into the realm of politics has always painted a sour frown on my face.

Why? I always wonder.

Why do you care?

Why do you want to make it harder for someone else, when you could nod, smile, let them go about their way and be a little happier in a world where the cares of two men or two women don't amount to a hill of beans?

(Momentary pause to reflect on my integration of a Casablanca line.)

(Pause)

So yeah, I applaud the rock-star madness of the California Supreme Court for taking the unconstitutional law by it's big, fat head and saying, "We're not going to bat for you, or anyone else!"

(Another pause to reflect on my integration of a Wayne's World line.)

(Pause)

The saying goes that those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it. The key word is not "learn". The key word is "from". History doesn't just teach us names, dates, facts and figures. It is a guide to how people can react in situations. When confronted with anger, fear, hatred, animosity, people typically react in the same patterns. When confronted with xenophobic intolerance of that which is different . . . well, let's start with the Crusades and then work our way through all the genocidal moments of history perpetrated by one group onto another because they looked, spoke, acted, thought, lived differently.

History is a revolution, but not one with radical change. It's the slow turning of a wheel that presents similar opportunities time and again. This time, California's Supreme Court said that different is neither good nor bad; it just is.

It is, and it's protected.