{"id":611,"date":"2009-11-04T10:08:22","date_gmt":"2009-11-04T10:08:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/progressiverevival\/2009\/11\/election-2009-mixed-blessings.html"},"modified":"2009-11-04T10:08:22","modified_gmt":"2009-11-04T10:08:22","slug":"election-2009-mixed-blessings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/11\/election-2009-mixed-blessings.html","title":{"rendered":"Election 2009 Mixed Blessings"},"content":{"rendered":"

I was never enthusiastic about Gov. Corzine. \u00a0Living in New Jersey I should have been fired up and ready to go, but like many of my fellow Jersians I went to polls and voted, but didn’t volunteer, go to any rallies, or put up a Corzine sign in my window. \u00a0I guess I am a typical (although I voted which makes me less so) Obama supporter who couldn’t get excited about an unexciting candidate. \u00a0Still, it makes me sorry to see him go. \u00a0I worry that under Christie the tendency of New Jersey<\/a> to accept itself as a segregated state between the suburbs and cities based on income (with its racial\u00a0corollary) will only become more pronounced. And Gov. Elect Christie seems likely to try to roll back some of the laws protecting reproductive freedom and gay rights. \u00a0Still, Corzine never really made his case why New Jersey should re-elect him and now we will see how the Republicans govern. \u00a0<\/p>\n

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More heart-breaking was the loss of the right to marry in Maine<\/a>. \u00a0I wonder if those who voted to repeal gay marriage realize the emotional violence they just perpetrated. \u00a0Think it through – a couple went through a sacred ceremony, pledging to live their lives together in marriage, only to have the validity of their love be questioned and revoked by strangers compelled by a superiority complex based on their sexual orientation. \u00a0I have officiated at many marriages – gay and straight and I can assure you there is NO DIFFERENCE in the quality of the love that is expressed. \u00a0If anything, the gay couples are more serious about it as they have to overcome obstacles of hostile family members and a hostile\u00a0government. \u00a0Ah, well. \u00a0Soon this will all seem silly as time is on equality’s side. \u00a0‘The arc of history is long – but bends towards justice’ as MLK, Jr. said. \u00a0 His wife, Corretta was a gay rights friend and we miss her and her husband on this day.\u00a0<\/div>\n
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Still, it is surprising to hear the media paint Nov 3 as a pure rebuke to the Democrats. \u00a0I was totally dumbfounded when I learned that in the New York congressional race, the Democrat Bill Owens beat Conservative Doug Hoffman<\/a>. \u00a0A Democrat hasn’t won that seat in a long time and it demonstrated that the right wing of the Republican party is going to be a major liability for years to come. \u00a0The back story is that the Republican nominee was deemed too moderate by the likes of Sara Palin, and Glenn Beck and so the Conservatives ran their own candidate – Doug Hoffman. \u00a0The Republican nominee, Dede Scozzafava,\u00a0then dropped out and threw her support behind Bill Owens – the Democrat! \u00a0Basically we have a new coalition of moderate to liberal Americans who are joining forces against the right. \u00a0There is a lesson to be learned here but I am not sure that the super right wing will learn it – which bodes well for 2010 and 2012. \u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/div>\n
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Also, on the gay issue there are a couple of good news items. \u00a0Chapel Hill elected its first openly gay mayor\u00a0<\/a>Mark Kleinschmidt; and an openly Lesbian, Annise Parker<\/a>, made it to the top two for a run off for mayor in Houston, Texas. \u00a0That’s right – Texas. \u00a0 Plus, Washington State voted to approve all benefits of marriag<\/a>e (without the name marriage) to same sex couples. \u00a0<\/div>\n
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We will see what happens will elections and with government over the next year but as gay rights activist Harvey Milk said: “You’ve got to give them hope.<\/a>“<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I was never enthusiastic about Gov. Corzine. \u00a0Living in New Jersey I should have been fired up and ready to go, but like many of my fellow Jersians I went to polls and voted, but didn’t volunteer, go to any rallies, or put up a Corzine sign in my window. \u00a0I guess I am a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[431],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-elections-off-year"],"yoast_head":"\nElection 2009 Mixed Blessings - Progressive Revival<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/11\/election-2009-mixed-blessings.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Election 2009 Mixed Blessings - Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I was never enthusiastic about Gov. Corzine. \u00a0Living in New Jersey I should have been fired up and ready to go, but like many of my fellow Jersians I went to polls and voted, but didn’t volunteer, go to any rallies, or put up a Corzine sign in my window. \u00a0I guess I am a…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/11\/election-2009-mixed-blessings.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Progressive Revival\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2009-11-04T10:08:22+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Paul Raushenbush\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Election 2009 Mixed Blessings - Progressive Revival","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/2009\/11\/election-2009-mixed-blessings.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Election 2009 Mixed Blessings - Progressive Revival","og_description":"I was never enthusiastic about Gov. 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Paul B. Raushenbush is the moderator of the Progressive Revival blog and the Associate Dean of Religious Life at Princeton University. .An ordained American Baptist minister, Rev. Raushenbush speaks and preaches at colleges, churches and institutes around the country including the College of Preachers at the National Cathedral in Washington D.C., The Chautauqua Institute in upstate New York, and the New America Foundation. Rev. Raushenbush has served at Seattle First Baptist Church, the Presbyterian Chaplaincy at Columbia University and as College and Young Adult Minister at The Riverside Church in New York City. He has appeared on ABC World News Tonight and is a repeated guest on CNN. He has been quoted in The New York Times and The Washington Post and is a contributing editor for Beliefnet.com. His first book, Teen Spirit: One World, Many Faiths (HCI) was released in the Fall of 2004. He is the editor of the 100th Anniversary edition of Walter Rauschenbusch\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s book Christianity and the Social Crisis \u00e2\u20ac\u201c In the 21st Century (HarperOne). His work at Princeton includes strengthening the interfaith community on campus. He is the Co-Director of the Program on Religion, Diplomacy and International Relations at The Liechtenstein Institute on Self Determination at Princeton University. Rev. Raushenbush studied religion at Macalester College before attending Union Theological Seminary in New York City where he graduated with distinction.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/author\/praushenbush"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=611"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/611\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/progressiverevival\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}