Reading about Politics

We're never too far from political discussions, and you are actually part of things now because you can vote. Your opinion counts for more than it did when you were twelve. (By the way, one of the main reasons originally given for establishing schools in our country was to have an educated electorate who could vote for things intelligently.)

As I sit here writing on June 5, 2008, I know that the presidential election is about to enter its final phase. Obama will probably become the first black candidate fielded by a major political party, though there's still a chance that Clinton will, instead, become the first woman. California's Supreme Court has issued a ruling that legalizes gay marriage, but the conservatives in that state promise to place a constitutional amendment on the ballot to forbid such unions. Senator Robert Byrd, 90 years old, and the longest serving U.S. Senator, has entered the hospital, and so has Senator Ted Kennedy, probably one of the most powerful Senators.

Politics is interesting daily stuff.

Last semester, I assigned Andrew Sullivan's "The Conservative Case for Gay Marriage." It's an article that originally appeared in Time magazine in 2003, pondering what effect the Canadian legalization of gay marriage would have on the USA. Some of my students' reactions were disturbing:

• Many assumed that Canada's decision was binding on the USA. They didn't seem to realize that the two countries are separate.
• At the time the article was written, the state Supreme Court in Massachusetts seemed very likely to rule that gay marriage should be legal there. Many of my students assumed that decision would be binding on everyone else in the country.
• The U.S. Supreme Court was about to rule on the question whether a specific sexual practice should have a different legal status depending on whether one is gay or straight. Many of my students thought the issue was gay marriage.
• Nobody seemed aware that our state, Ohio, has a Constitutional amendment against gay marriage that is so broad that a live-in boyfriend who beats his girlfriend cannot be prosecuted for domestic violence.

All of this brings up two points.

1. You need to know how our country is governed if you intend to make any sort of intelligent comment. Do you know what a primary election is? What on earth is the Electoral College (and why was it put in place)? If California legalizes something, does Ohio have to allow it?
2. If you get your news from the kids at the lunch table, you really don't know anything. If you get it from online sources such as Yahoo, you are in better shape, but their complexity is aimed at a person with a fourth grade education and 30 seconds to read. You will do far better with a big-city newspaper such as The Washington Post or the Los Angeles Times. You really should spend some time with major news magazines (Time or Newsweek, for example) and actually read the in-depth articles.