What’s so Scary about Sarah Palin?

We know so little about Barak Obama, but suddenly he seems like the fully-known quantity compared with the governor from Alaska. So what do we know about her?

First, she apparently has lots of energy, is personally engaging, and most likely highly disciplined That’s all good. She may be competent and effective as well.

Then we get to the other stuff, and this cannot be ignored.

She is virulently anti-gay, and I take that personally. She told the Anchorage Daily News that she supported the 1998 constitutional amendment to ban same sex marriage (link). Although she vetoed a bill that would have stripped domestic partner health benefits for state workers, she did so only after the Alaskan Supreme Court declared the law unconstitutional. Further, she declared her opposition to those benefits in a published gubernatorial candidate questionnaire (link), and said in another published questionnaire taht she would support a constitutional amendment to achieve the same end (link). Now I’ve been pretty lucky: I had a twenty-one year run with my partner, the Cuban-American artist Danny Puissegur. So when I hear someone say that it was right for me to have to spend over $10,000 in legal fees to hold onto our New York co-op apartment after he died, or that it would be right to have blocked him from the health care benefits from my employer, that’s personal. We Americans are now getting close to the point where it is really possible to love and make your life with who you want. This is no time to go backwards.

She is an NRA member and supporter. As a gun owner and life-long hunter myself, I find the NRA to be one of the most despicable organizations around. The NRA makes no difference between firearms used for sport, and firearms used to kill people. Before we get into this, let’s simplify the argument: the Second Amendment to the Constitution should be repealed, and it should be repealed because it was so badly written that no one can agree to what it means. (I know of no one who actually tries to make the case for gun ownership based on “militias”. That should be a hint.)

So, if we take the Second Amendment out of the argument, we can then make the case for gun ownership for either sport or personal protection. For the NRA, that’s not good enough: it’s all guns, all the time, including automatic assault weapons. Years ago, my dad went into the attic and brought out his Army-issued .45-calibre automatic, which he had held onto since the end of World War II. He brought it to his local police department, handed it over, and asked them to destroy it. The police were somewhat taken aback – it was, after all, a nice piece in perfect condition. He said to them, “The only purpose for this gun is to kill people. Please get rid of it for me.” They did. Pop understood so clearly what the NRA and Sarah Palin never will: keeping a gun to kill people with, even if you feel threatened by your surroundings, is probably something most people should not want to do, because the price you pay, once you shoot someone, can be far greater than the original threat. Are there exceptions to this? Sure there are. If I was cruising on a sailboat in some areas of the world, I would absolutely have a gun, and, if boarded, I would not hesitate to use it. But for most of us in the United States, if you really think through the whole process, you end up realizing that using guns for protection is a bad plan. So, I can make the case for guns in sport, and even (rarely) for protection. But the NRA and its supporters like Sarah Palin want lots more than that, and we are, as a society, far worse off for their efforts. Footnote to the story: Pop continued hunting until he was 84 years old. At that point he could still shoot quail with amazing consistency; it was his driving down to the hunting areas of south Jersey that had become the real threat.

Sarah Palin wants us to teach religion in our public schools. “Creationism” or “Intelligent design” are nothing more than religion – they are not alternative theories to evolution. They are fundamentalist Christian religious teachings, period. Now I know I’ve spent far too much time studying religion; it was something of an obsession with me throughout my education, and, like Christopher Hitchens, I studied them all. (Actually, one of the few college text books still on my shelf is my Biblical Hebrew text, which I’ve kept because taking that course from a scary-smart Jesuit was something I will never forget. Or want to repeat.) After all that study, I realized two important aspects of my personal religion. First, my personal beliefs are closest to Buckminster Fuller’s “No More Secondhand God”. Second, one of our most precious assets in the United States is the freedom to believe what you want. To that end, the great declaration “A Shared Vision – Religious Liberty in the 21st Century” is one of the most important documents anywhere. Originally signed by more than 80 prominent religious scholars and six religious and civil liberties organizations, it was updated in 2002, and should be read by everyone. (link here) Teaching “creationism” is teaching religion, and it has no place in our schools. We can only allow freedom of belief if we keep religion out of the government.

We will see what happens with Governor Palin in the next few weeks. But anyone who promotes or supports her candidacy should know what they are supporting. It is scary.
Bill Way
New York City
August 2008

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