THE NEW AMERICA: NO-GO ZONES FOR GAYS?

Now that 11 states have voted by overwhelming margins for amendments to their state consitutions to ban gay marriage -- Mississippi, Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Oklahoma, North Dakota, Montana, Utah, Ohio, Michigan and Oregon -- lending huge support to seven other states that already define marriage as exclusively heterosexual, will we soon be seeing "no-go zones" for gays?

If you think that's far fetched, think about how far the lunatic fringe, now the right-wing majority, has come -- and how far it believes its mandate from the election goes. For one thing, efforts to institute a federal ban may be on the not too distant horizon. "With five new Republican senators elected Tuesday, opponents of same-sex marriage maintain, an amendment to the U.S. Constitution could be introduced and conceivably passed as soon as the next congressional session," Elizabeth Mehren reports.

(Image by Mort Subiet.)

"Now comes the revolution," the influential, far-right conservative Richard Viguerie tells reporter David D. Kirkpatrick. "If you don't implement a conservative agenda now, when do you?" Viguerie, he reports, wrote in a memorandum to conservative leaders: "Make no mistake -- conservative Christians and 'values voters' won this election for George W. Bush and Republicans in Congress. It's crucial that the Republican leadership not forget this -- as much as some will try."

Kirkpatrick reports that Christian conservatives -- who, don't forget, turned the election into a rout in the popular vote for the Ignoramus in Chief -- believe the nation is "on the verge of self-destruction" because it lacks traditional family values, according to James C. Dobson, an evangelical Christian who founded Focus on the Family. With the election of the Ignoramus to a second term, "God has given us a reprieve," Dobson says. "But I believe it is a short reprieve."

Think about this: These right-wing Christian conservatives believe they have just four years to ban gay marriage, stop abortion and embryonic stem-cell research, and, above all, give the U.S. Supreme Court a complete makeover so as to overturn Roe v. Wade.

If they succeed, how far fetched would it be to see no-go zones not only for gays, but for embryonic stem-cell researchers, scientists who believe or, worse, preach evolution, and for women seeking abortions. (Hell, the lunatic fringe even hopes to pass one measure called the "Unborn Child Pain Awareness Act," which, Kirkpatrick reports, would require "some women seeking abortions to be offered anesthesia for their fetuses.")

(Image by Mort Subiet.)

Now think about this: Jews were almost the only religious group that did not vote for the Ignoramus in Chief. They favored Kerry by roughly 75 percent. But they are just three percent of the electorate (like gays, a tiny minority). Will we be seeing constitutional amendments to ban interfaith marriages to Jews, maybe even marriage between Jews? It wasn't so long ago that marriage between enslaved African-Americans was banned. How about no-go zones for Jews? (But Christian evangelicals support the Jewish state of Israel, you say. Well, how about deporting the Jews to where they belong?)

We were deluded by polls that said a majority of American voters believed the Ignoramus had mismanaged both the war in Iraq and the U.S. economy. The polls deluded us into thinking the election would be decided on the moral issues of lying to the American people about weapons of mass destruction; torturing U.S.-held prisoners; the deaths of more than 1,100 American soldiers, and nearly 10,000 wounded; the uncounted deaths of Iraqi civilians, perhaps 100,000 according to a recent report; social issues involving morality such as poverty, the increasing divide between rich and poor, tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans, privatizing Social Security.

In the real world, when polls show high disapproval ratings for a sitting president -- as they did just before the election -- they would indicate a brewing defeat for him. But this is America, which seems to be living in a dream world. Are we in shit too deep to climb out? I recall asking, Will voters suddenly wake up on election day and make the right decision? Now we know.