I did my part over lunch today and cast an absentee ballot downtown. Don’t forget to do the same yourself on Tuesday (or before).

I voted against the gay marriage amendment (it’s already illegal!). Gotta love the Christians… though they purport to love everyone, they want to make discrimination a part of our state constitution.

And I also voted against the idiotic idea that we should reinstate the death penalty in Wisconsin. We’ve only executed one man in this state, in 1851, and I hope he remains the last. We banned the death penalty in 1858. Our neighbors to the south (in Illinois) did not, and we merely have to look at them for evidence that the death penaly can and will send innocent people to be murdered by the state.

Adding this bit of nonsense that there has to be DNA evidence is irrelevant. DNA evidence is not infalliable.

As for the rest of the races, I did vote Democrat for governor, senator, and attorney general. I am a staunch anti-establishment voter. I think in theory at least, the Democrats and Republicans each have it half right (libertarians are all-right, but they can’t win a race). However, the incessant urge for the Republicans to involve their nutjob religious beliefs in the public sphere has left me no choice but to go for the lesser of evils this time. For shame.

You know, the religous right likes to say that this country was founded as a Christian state. They’re right in that most people at the time were Christian. However, back then, there was a strong sense that religion should be left out of politics. They meant to found a nation of the people, for the people, and by the people. Neither god nor government, but the people.

Furthermore, many of the founding fathers believed in God, but not Christianity. George Washington was a church goer, but walked out when communion started. Thomas Jefferson was rabidly anti-Christian, though also a believer.

From Don’t Know Much About History by Kenneth C. Cole:

Proponents of America as a “Christian nation” and those who favor public prayer often cite [Benjamin] Franklin’s entreaty that the constitutional convention open its meetings with a prayer. What they conveniently leave out is what actually happened following that suggestion. Alexander Hamilton first argued that if the people knew that the convention was resorting to prayer at such a late date, it might be viewed as an act of desperation. Nonetheless, Franklin’s motion was seconded. But then Hugh Williamson of North Carolina pointed out that the convention lacked funds to pay a chaplain, and then the proposition died. Franklin later noted, “The convention, except three or four persons, thought prayers unnecessary” (emphasis added).