This will be the last column for 2004. Hard to believe that another year has come and gone already. And it's been a seesaw of emotions for many in this country, ending on a rather sour not. While we may be down right now, we're definitely not out. And by "us" I mean those who truly care about justice and eqaulity for all, about abiding by the US Constitution and about getting rid of corruption and hypocrisy in the government and its policies. Let's just recap some of the years high and lows for the true, patriotic Americans.

Nowhere was the "seesaw" more evident than in the issue of gay equality. This year saw some amazing strides and some devastating setbacks in gay rights. The issue was talked about like never before and that in itself is a major accomplishment. Thousands of gay couples exchanged vows as the city of San Francisco starting on Valentine's Day, only to have those marriages overturned by the California courts. The upside is that the case is now "fasttracked" to the US Supreme Court as both the city and the state have both vowed to appeal any decision all the way to the highest court. The state of Oregon is still wrangling with the issue of gay marriage after one of its counties issue marriage licenses to gay couples. New Jersey is set to make a ruling on the issue as well. And in Massachuestts, the first legal gay marriages were performed in the US, although state officials used a rather obscure law to prevent gay couples from all over the country coming to Massachuestts to get married. To date, more than 3000 gay couples have married in the Bay State since May 17, 2004. If the radical religious right is correct and gays make up only 3% of the population, that means that there would have had to be 90,000 hetersexual couples married in that same time period in order to match the pace at which gay couples were tying the knot. (Census figures indicate that in 2001, Massachusetts had 40,000 marriages. I seriously doubt that in the past four years that number has more than doubled when the number of marriages have dropped steadily since at least 1990.) So much for those who suggested that most gays really don't want to get married. To date, there has been one divorce among gay couples who married this year. The statewide average (for 2001, once again) is 2.4 per thousand marriages, so one would expect about 7.2 divorces. (Of course, I realize this number may come closer to the state average in the next few years.) Two court cases in the state of Washington have ruled that the denial of gay marriage and that state's version of the DOMA laws are unconstitutional. On the flip side of all the ups is the blame that's being laid at the feet of gay rights activists for costing John Kerry the election. According to some-- both within Democratic and gay rights organizations as well as those on the radical religious right-- the issue of gay marriage rallied the fundamentalist/Pentecostal Christian voters who came out in masses to vote for Bush. And of course there were setbacks with the passage of 11 new constitutional amendments defining marriage as between one man and one woman (although a couple of those amendments are being constitutionally challenged in court.)

This year brought legal victories for those "terrorists" being unjustly detained by the US government, although the Bush administration is appealing the decisions of the lower courts. It was ruled that the prisoners had the right to have access to an attorney, something they have been denied by this "moral" administration since October, 2001. Another victory for those who believe in justice for all came when the UN refused to extend immunity to US soldiers for war crimes. The audacity of the administration to even ask for such immunity just weeks after the Abu Ghraib torture story broke is unbelievable. It never ceases to amaze me that most Americans can't seem to understand their hypocrisy in supporting Bush's actions. If another country were to invade the US and we fought them off, we'd be labled patriots. But when the Iraqi people do the same thing, they're labled "dangerous insurgents" and targeted for extermination. The entire war on terrorism is unwinnable because one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. People fighting to defend their homeland have the advantage over people fighting to invade. It's why the US lost in Viet Nam. And it's why we'll lose in Iraq and Afghanistan as well.

There hasn't been much good news on the civil liberties front. The radical religious right, emboldened by the supposed re-election of Bush, is now making a concerted push to marginalize those who disagree with them. More amendments are in the works legislating the definition of marriage. Bush met with a legislator from Alabama who wants to make it illegal to use taxpayer money to buy books that treat homosexuality as acceptable/normal or that have gay characters or are written by gays. (I wonder if they're going to rewrite history to wipe out the contributions made by gays. If so, I wonder how they'll get rid of Alexander the Great....) A study just released by Cornell University shows that almost 50% of Americans favor limiting the freedoms and rights of Muslim Americans-- and they're more likely to feel that way if they're Republican or highly religious. (Can anyone say "Japanese internment camps"?) A group of concerned parents made a claim recently that complaints against television obscenity and decency were at an all time high-- but what they didn't say was that almost all of the increase is due to one "parent" group that holds to beliefs shared by the radical religious right. These people are pushing for further restrictions on televion shows and programs: ie, censorship. At the Republican National Convention, three teachers who were wearing T-shirts that said "Protect our civil rights" were detained and removed from the convetion for wearing anti-Bush slogans. And of course the threat from terrorists that continues to cause the need for laws like Patriot II that take away even more rights. (Of course, now that the election is over, they may not need those terrorist alerts anymore.) A woman's freedom of choice was threatened by the verdict in the Scott Peterson case. By giving the unborn the same rights as other living humans, anti-choice forces hope to overturn Roe v Wade, something that may actually happen if, as many insiders expect, Antonin Scalia is made chief justice.

Then, of course, we have the mother of all let-downs-- the re-election of the most ignorant, hypocritical liar ever to hold office. Bush and his cronies-- all elected on the strength of the radical religious right, now control both houses of Congress and the White House. They have a large enough majority in both houses that without some Republicans "switching sides" so to speak when voting on issues, they can pretty much pass what they want in terms of legislation. There are still questions of voter fraud: lines in many predominantly Democratic precints were hours long while lines in nearby predominantly Republican precincts were much shorter. Dozens of polling places in Ohio reporting more up to ten times more votes for Bush than they had registered voters to begin with. You know, statistically, if the machines were not properly functioning, you'd think that someone would have found a voting machine that gave more votes to Kerry, but I haven't heard of any.

We who love our country and want its freedoms to extend to all citizens and want our nation to stop its hypocrisy and bullying may be down right now, but we're NOT out. We're not going to roll over and play dead while our nation's Constitution is dismantled by those with a religious agenda. We will never give up our hopes that someday, this nation will turn itself around so that it can live up to its full potential instead of dragging the rest of the world into a period of darkness and oblivion. In fact, if you're one of us, head over to Never Surrender and sign their petition and maybe order a couple bracelets. And to the rest of the world who may be reading this, please pay a visit to Sorry Everybody and try to find it in your heart to forgive those of our fellow countrymen who voted Bush back into office.

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