Today is President's Day. Many businesses are closed. In this economic climate, it's unclear if all of these businesses will open again tomorrow. And if the firms open again, who knows how many of their jobs went to India overnight? ... Banks are closed. The workers at my bank hurriedly take the ketchup off the table when they see me coming these days anyway ... There's no regular mail delivery today -- as if there is any such thing. ...
Oh, yes, the courts are also closed today. That gives Mayor Gavin Newsom and all the City Hall staffers another day to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples while opponents of such magnanimity have the whole day to wring their hands. They can file their injunctions tomorrow. ...
Mayor Newsom says he was moved to legalize same-sex marriages after he heard President Bush make a reference in his State of The Union about supporting a constitutional amendment to ensure marriage remains a contract between a man and woman. I can't help but wonder what Thomas Jefferson would say about such a lurid scheme to corrode the Constitution. And I can't be precisely sure what Jefferson meant when he said in his first inaugural address on March, 4, 1801, "Equal and exact justice to all men, of whatever state or persuasion ..."
That has become such an odd term is recent years, "persuasion." Sort of a creepy code word for bigotry. For example, "My good friend, Cuthbert, is of the Jewish persuasion" or "Cuthbert is of the gay persuasion."... Who persuaded him to be Jewish? Or gay, for that matter? Was anyone ever persuaded to be gay and Jewish? But I digress. ...
The phrase of Jefferson, "equal and exact justice," is what Mayor Newsom is talking about when he rejects the notion of "civil union" as a substitute for marriage. "It's a case of separate and not equal," says Gavin. Jefferson might be inclined to agree, though it's silly to speculate. Would Jefferson condone same-sex marriage? He was a man of the world. It might have been just fine with him -- as long as it didn't frighten the horses or get in the way of him sleeping with the slaves. ...
The President's Day holiday was signed into law in 1971 by Richard Nixon. Doesn't it sound just like Nixon to come up something so vague, colorless and bureaucratic? To combine the birthdays of Washington & Lincoln, and "honor all the presidents of the past." All of them? Even Nixon? I'm sure that's what he had in mind. He certainly didn't do it to give bank employees a day off. He didn't have any use for banks. Nixon had his money delivered to him in battered suitcases by burly men in bulging jackets while he was on the golf course. ...
As we honor the presidents of the past, it's a good time to honor those who should have been president. Anyone who might have seen what Viet Nam was doing to the nation. That could have been Robert Kennedy. It might have been Barry Goldwater. Or Eugene McCarthy. Or George McGovern. Or Pat Paulsen. ... America got hornswoggled by Nixon, who had "a secret plan to end the war -- I'll tell you about it after I'm elected." ... I wish the Democratic candidate might have the guts to say, "I've got a plan: I'll end this thing in Iraq before it becomes a Viet Nam." ...
As for the birthday boys: I grew up in a part of the country that was surrounded by Revolutionary War history. All sorts of inns and hotels displayed signs that read, "George Washington Slept Here." There were so many of these places that one began to believe Washington got more than plenty of sleep while fighting the British. This is unlikely. He didn't sleep around all that much. That's the rap they're trying to hang on John Kerry. ...
On the other hand, Lincoln looked like he never got any sleep. That was one tuckered-out looking man. He had guided the Union through the Civil War and he was ready for nap. But Mrs. Lincoln insisted he go to the theater that last night. ... "There are two things that scare the tarnation out of me," Ulysses S. Grant might have muttered. "Running out of Tennessee whisky and running into Lincoln's wife." ... She had a terrific temper. "Emancipation Proclamation?" she once shrieked at the president. "I'll show you Emancipation Proclamation. Go take out the garbage!" ...
All jokes aside, Washington and Lincoln were remarkable men who seemed truly committed to doing the right thing for the nation as a whole -- not for pragmatism, nor the polls nor for their personal aggrandizement. ... We might not be able to remember the exact dates of their birthdays anymore but on this day, I can recall enough to stop and sigh, "Why can't we find anyone like them?
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