Don We Now Our Gay Approval

Fa-la-la, la-la-la, LA LA LA

Come on. Get into the Christmas spirit. Forget about the election tomorrow. What election? PREcisely.

Fine. Election chatter it is. Look! History has a chance to be made tomorrow.

Vision 1: A Mormon President

no caption needed

With Mormons considered part of mainstream Christianity by so many Americans, electing an LDS President may not be a very big deal. Mormons have been governors, Senate Majority Leaders, and are not disqualified from holding the presidency in the same way that women are. Kidding! Oh my God I am so kidding it's not even funny. Except maybe the kidding is completely the opposite of kidding, because there seems to be little to no pushback against a fringe Christian / polytheist holding the office of President, and at the same time, we have yet to see a woman nominated by a major political party. Why is that? (The question is rhetorical.)

Vision 2: Another split in the popular vote winner and the Electoral College winner

You'll remember that Albert Gore won the popular vote in 2000 but not exactly the presidency. (Don't mention the Florida "recount." I don't want to talk about that. Ever again. Maybe.) Anyway: if Willard Romney wins the popular vote this year while the President takes the Electoral College, we Americans who are interested in democracy have a chance to use the ensuing controversy for good.

Twice in twelve years, the popular vote winner will have been denied the Oval Office. Each party will have been victimized once. Everyone on each side of the aisle will hate the system, and with just cause.

MAYBE FINALLY enough pressure will be put on Congress to enact a constitutional amendment that abolishes the Electoral College altogether. Failing that (and you should always assume a certain degree of failure from Congress), more legislatures may enact a law that gives that state's electoral votes to the popular vote winner regardless of individual state results.

(Read.)

MAYBE. If we strike while the iron is hot, maybe even sick-of-political-ads Ohioans and Coloradonites and Virginians and Floridians will climb on board.

But this can only happen if Mitt Romney, the most inept, secretive, dishonest and duplicitous presidential candidate in the history of the universe, inexplicably wins 50.01 percent of the vote tomorrow. Go America!

(i have got to do something about my broken caps lock key, it's flaring up again.)

Vision 3: Gay marriage is approved at the ballot box for the first time in U.S. history

again, a caption would be overkill

Measures legalizing SSM are up for voter approval in three navy blue states: MD, MN and WA (woot woot). Wherever gay marriage (also known as "marriage") has been implemented, it has always been as a judicial action. It has never crested 50 percent approval. Until tomorrow, when it might. Or might not.

While I would be especially proud to see my home state be the first to

 -- WE INTERRUPT THIS CLAUSE WITH EMERGENCY POLL NUMBERS --

Washington State Referendum 74: Poll numbers, averaged
Summer: 50.5 for, 42.5 against
September: 54.0 for, 38.3 against
October: 53.7 for, 40.4 against
November: 52.0 for, 42.0 against
Those are admirably consistent.

-- WE RETURN YOU TO WHATEVER THE H --

pass SSM by a vote of the people, I also am confident that should it fail, it won't fail repeatedly. Achieving marriage equality is a foregone conclusion. Whether it happens in 2012 or 2014 or 2016 is the only question at this point. With nationwide polls showing quick movement toward acceptance of SSM (look at these numbers! they're almost too good to be true), the war is won. The battles remain to be fought, and traditionalists will shriek for a time, but the eventual outcome is certain. Gays will marry, and it will be soon. Not soon enough. Just plain soon. Which is not good enough. But still just plain good.

Please vote.