Because, this week, I made my election picks. The eroticism of voting has its detractors, but I’ll tell you this: the mere thought of heading over to church (!) this Tuesday, saddling up behind a massive Diebold machine, and punching buttons with a frantic sense of purpose totally gives me a boner. I’ve been fantasizing about this for two years, baby.

Granted, the experience hasn’t quite rawked my world nearly as hard as I’d hoped, at least not thus far. I’d love to be able to cast at least one vote for a third-party candidate, but the only parties represented on the Kansas ballot - in addition to the Dems and Rethugs, of course - are the Libertarian and Reform parties. Now, I can get behind the Libertarians’ social agenda, but their cozy relationship with the big corps just leaves me cold. Even Shane - who actually registered as a Libertarian this year - breaks with them on enviro and animal welfare issues. On the other side of the aisle is the Reform party of Kansas, whose web site got me all hot and bothered, if only for a moment.

They start off fairly strong with their so-called Constitutional Principles platform:

* We shall seek to reform our electoral, lobbying, and campaign practices to ensure that our elected government officials and our candidates owe their allegiance and remain accountable to the people whom they are elected to serve rather than other influence-seeking agencies.

* We shall require ethical conduct by all our government officials with respect to the acceptance of rewards from special interests seeking to influence government during or following their terms of public service.

Cool, cool. Throw ‘public funding of federal elections’ in the mix, and you’ve got me.

Next up - Social Issues/Civil Rights:

The Reform Party of KS supports passage of legislation designating English as the official language of the United States.

We, the Reform Party of KS, wholeheartedly support Second Amendment rights as guaranteed by the United States Constitution and as given to us by Almighty God.

The Reform Party of KS strongly supports the traditional family as ordained by God and built upon the marital union of one man and one woman.

Um, stop right there. Say no more. What we’ve got here is one sorry case of redneck, godbagging sheeple in wolves’ clothing. Fuck that.

So, yeah, with the Reform party out of the way, my choices became that much simpler.

Once I made my picks, I just about ended up with a straight Dem ticket. The only race in which I’m venturing over to The Dark Side is that of State Treasurer - where the Dem challenger doesn’t seem to have many math skillz. Compare that with incumbent Lynne Jenkins’ mad crazy CPA xperience, and even Larry has to admit that she’s better qualified for the job.

As far as the Dems go, none exactly ignite a fit of passion in the cockles, but I can live with ‘em. Dennis Moore (US Rep, 3rd District) received the endorsement of Humane USA, the Humane Society’s Legislative Fund, and NARAL, and scored a 90/100 on the Secular Coalition for America’s scorecard (conspicuously absent, though, were the thumbs-up from the League of Conservation Voters and NOW). Governor Kathleen Sebelius scored with NARAL, as did Paul Morrison, who’s challenging resident perve Phill Kline. You know the guy - the one who currently abuses his position as Kansas AG to harass women who’ve had Teh Sex, as reflected in their abortion records. Bitch is going down. Like, Rick Santorum down. Hard and angry.

And we can’t forget about the State Board of Education race for my esteemed 3rd District. John Bacon is among the fucktards who voted to teach (un)Intelligent Design alongside evolution in Kansas public schools. While this was, in keeping with the man’s nature, absolutely fucktarded, I suppose I owe the godidiots of Kansas a touch of gratitude, for it is they who filled the pot that would cook His Noodliness. Without the anti-science zealots, I never would have tasted such saucy deliciousness. So, thank you Johnny boy, but an atheist’s gotta do what an atheist’s gotta do: don’t let the church school doors hit your ignorant ass on the way out.

While the general races were fairly easy to decide, the to-retain-or-not-to-retain questions for Kansas court judges were less so. Aside from the full-text judgments in previous cases, there’s very little info available on the judges themselves. And who the fuck has the time to read 2+ decisions for eighteen judges? Not this featherhead. Ultimately, I voted to retain Judge X unless I uncovered some unsavory fact about a past ruling. My final number of yeas was twelve.

This was by far the most bo-ring part of my civic duty. However, two judges did manage to raise my hackles: Henry W. Green, Jr. and Tom Malone, both of the infamous (and infamously bigoted) Matthew Limon case:

In 2000 teenager Matthew R. Limon was convicted of having consensual sex with another, younger teenage boy. Both adolescents were developmentally disabled. A Kansas court sentenced Matthew to 17 years in prison. Attorney General Kline noted that this type of offense merited a tough sentence.

However, in 1999 Kansas adopted a so-called “Romeo and Juliet” law. This law specified that when an older teenager engages in consensual sex with a younger teenager, and the age difference is less than four years, the maximum prison sentence that can be applied to the older teenager is 15 months. However, the law specified that this only applied to heterosexual adolescents. When Matthew’s attorney’s appealed his conviction, on the grounds that stiffer penalties for homosexual teenagers than for heterosexual teenagers were unconstitutional, a Kansas appellate court disagreed.

Appeals court Judge Henry W. Green, Jr. ruled that the sentence given to Matthew encouraged “traditional sexual mores” and the “traditional sexual development of children,” as well as marriage and procreation. Judge Green added that the ruling helped protect teenagers from sexually transmitted diseases, which he said were more common among homosexual teens that heterosexual teens. Another appeals court judge, Tom Malone, also supported the latter reasoning. Thankfully, the Kansas Supreme Court rejected the appeals court ruling.

The Kansas Supreme Court found that the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2003 ruling in Lawrence v. Texas, in which the court found that homosexual sex between adults was not a crime, applied to Matthew Limon’s case. Marla J. Luckert, a Kansas Supreme Court Justice, wrote the unanimous ruling which advised, “The moral disapproval of a group cannot be a legitimate state interest.” The court found that the Romeo and Juliet law violated the Constitution’s equal protection clause.

Thank gawd the Kansas Supreme Court had more sense than the appellate court. What happened to Limon was, well, appalling. So it gives me great pleasure to vote against the two dickwads who helped to steal 4 1/2 years of a developmentally disabled teen’s life. Pass this one along to fellow Kansans - Kline may be the fundie xian receiving the lion’s share of deserved liberal wrath, but Green and Malone are just as evil.

But back to Kline for a moment. Our little Creepy Peeper was complicit in the whole Limon affair as well:

However, Attorney General Kline disagreed with the court. In a brief filed in support of Matthew’s 17 year prison term Mr. Kline argued that reversing Matthew’s sentence would threaten traditional marriage. He illogically warned that if the court ruled in Matthew’s favor this would ultimately force Kansas to recognize bigamist and incestuous marriages, as well as other “less-than-desirable couplings.” The latter presumably referred to marriages among homosexuals.

You read that right: “less-than-desirable couplings”. As if his seed’s the cream of the fucking crop or something. Douchebag.

Man, I so cannot wait for Tuesday.

Up tomorrow: links to voting guides to help y’all out with your picks, as well as a link dump of election coverage.

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Tagged: vote voting elections mid-term+elections ballot matthew+limon phill+kline dennis+moore henry+green tom+malone kansas john+bacon don+weiss discrimination

Originally posted @ www.kellygarbato.com/blog/2006-11-04/
Filed under: Politics, GLBT — Kelly @ November 4, 2006 7:05 pm