Gatehouse Media (Dover Post, Smyrna-Clayton Sun Times) sponsored a debate on 10/8/2012 @ Smyrna High School. All three of us running for the 15th District Senate Seat were there.
There will be another debate 10/9 @ Caesar Rodney. Same moderator. It will be interesting to see if he switches up the questions or not; and if not, if my opponents change any of their responses.
The most interesting thing about this was, there were many issues on which we all agreed. However, when we got to civil unions/marriage equality, we actually had a debate.
Senator Lawson stated that he was against the civil union bill and any proposed marriage equality legislation. Then he hesitated (and I KNEW what was coming) and said the bible was against it.
I don't care which religion you practice, there are problems with this statement. Although this is not how I phrased it: A) there's more than one bible; B) we have freedom of religion and separation of church and state and C) this is a civil rights issue. If we don't discriminate for other things, we can't/shouldn't discriminate on this.
The Democratic candidate, Katie Cooke, agreed with me that this was about civil rights. There was a little more back and forth, particularly when marriage as a religious ceremony was mentioned. Because when you marry in a religious ceremony, your pastor, reverend, rabbi, priest, must register that wedding with the County/State. That makes it a civil union. I have heterosexual friends who were married by a Justice of the Peace; that is a civil union. Senator Lawson stated that he was against it because the legislation was only concerned with the gay and lesbian community.
As I've mentioned before in another blog, societies and traditions change. Anyone watch "Modern Family" or "The New Normal" on television? (Have to admit I haven't, but mainly because I am into "Warehouse 13" and police procedure shows and yes, I know they aren't completely accurate; I like mysteries and sci fi/fantasy.)
And towards the end of the debate, when I reiterated that legislators had to reach out to constituents to find out how they felt about the issues, Senator Lawson said that there were too many people in the district for him to contact everyone, and that only 7% of the people voted, and 40% didn't, and it was their fault, they were the problem, they have a voter's card in their pockets and they should use it (we won't get into the faulty math here). My response was that he couldn't use the fact that 40% of the district didn't vote as an excuse to abrogate his responsibility to serve ALL the people. That's when there was a smattering of spontaneous applause.
And that's when I realized - I have been doing this because I felt it necessary. But it can be fun, too.
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