Change isn’t constant

Tuesday was just weird. Americans showed up in droves, waited for hours in line and, finally, when it was time, voted for change.

Allegedly.

If you take the time to look at the propositions that were passed and banned across the nation, more regression than “change” is apparent in the final decisions. It’s like everyone woke up with their minds made up for the presidential election without giving a second thought to what was on the local ballots. How else can the results be explained? It makes no sense: vote for a liberal candidate and then vote for extremely conservative social policies.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m just as jazzed as anyone else about our president-elect, but I wonder if people around the nation just slipped into some sort of selective coma as they voted on state propositions.

I’m sure everyone knows by now that Proposition 8 passed. This means that the California Constitution will actually now sport an amendment banning same-sex marriage. Before you start hating on the state, consider the fact that there were two other states with the same propositions on their ballots. California, Arizona and Florida decided against same-sex marriages last week; two of them, California and Florida, also voted for Mr. Change for president.

In the defense of Bruins, however, the Daily Bruin reports that 81 percent of us voted in favor of same-sex marriages, which incidentally puts us at odds with most of our fellow Californians, 52 percent of whom voted against it.

So apparently, change and progress were just the catchphrases of the presidential campaign. Americans voted for Obama and then decided that they’d had enough “change” for now. Too much of it would probably just upset digestive systems around the nation.

In Connecticut, people actually voted against having a constitutional convention to mull over the possibility of some changes. We are basically just talking about an open discussion, no taxes were to be levied, but still, the answer was a resounding no.

In Arkansas, voters decided that they weren’t OK with the idea of unmarried couples adopting children. This ban is covertly designed to keep gay couples from adopting children because the wise voters in the great state of Arkansas think a kid would be better off in an orphanage or being shipped from foster parent to foster parent than with an unmarried couple.

The wording of this ballot specifically banned unmarried couples from adoption because, of course, any and all heterosexual couples always get married. No one would ever forego the privilege of marriage, and if they do, they can’t adopt.

According to the Baptist Press, Jerry Cox, president of the Arkansas Family Council, said that the law was designed to increase the number of families volunteering for adoptive care. So to increase the number of potential parents for these children, Arkansas is going to limit the number of people who are eligible for it. If this seems like twisted logic, that’s because it is. It’s not exactly kosher, and it certainly isn’t any kind of progress. Nope, it’s just the same old, same old.

The prize for weirdest ballot measure definitely goes to the state with all the orange juice and alligators. This one doesn’t even scratch together an iota of sense and makes me wonder about the mental health of Floridians.

An old clause in the Florida Constitution bans Asian immigrants from owning land. The equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment wouldn’t let that clause ever actually be enforced, so it’s mainly symbolic. But it’s still disturbing that 52 percent of the voters decided to preserve the clause.

Even though this clause doesn’t do anything and won’t actually stop anyone from owning land, the fact that most Floridians voted to keep something like that in their constitution is mind-boggling. They can vote a black man into office, but a constitution that allows Asians to own land isn’t something that sits well with people in Florida. What kind of change do they stand for exactly? Must be something with the heat.

If this were about preserving some sort of historical document, it would be a different debate. Voting to preserve this clause in the state constitution, a legal document that is still applied today, is just awkward.

I hope the next four years turn out to be everything everyone’s hoping for and our president-elect lives up to our expectations. I have to hope for that because apparently the expectations for change that we set for him we didn’t set for ourselves.

We have three states denying marriage, one denying adoption, one refusing to even talk about possible amendments and another, in a weird hissy fit, targeting Asian immigrants for no good reason and without the hopes of any real effect.

We cast our ballots to make a difference last week, but maybe we didn’t really mean it. Chanting “yes we can” doesn’t cut it. The country isn’t magically going to change if we don’t help it along.

If you know why people in Florida are so odd, e-mail Joshi at [email protected]. Send general comments to [email protected].