OK Indiana and Gubner Pence. We will fight your disgusting new Sharia Law.

[salin]

35. Hi you! I am torn...

but I am more appalled then torn.

It seems like yesterday I was standing in an early voting line at the Marion County City County Building waiting to vote. The line stretched across the front of the building (a block) on Market Street, and then down more than a block on Delaware down past Washington Street. 2008, momentum was changing in this state. The GOP congressional delegation flipped D and the state voted for a Democratic candidate for President for the first time since 1964.

What the heck happened here? How did we get to this place? You are correct about the super majorities - and they have grown.

And now they are more backward and bigoted.

In the space of a week - the legislature passes the freedom to ignore laws if you can claim a religious claim (as specious as it might be) law - and the governor signs it into law. The day/night he signs it into law - he admits to press that he can point to no situation in the state to warrant such a law - and then states this isn't about discrimination (then what the h* is it about?). Then we learn that there has been a growing AIDS epidemic in a county - which local officials had been screaming about to no effect, because the holy roller crowd had cast in iron that any program for needle exchanges (despite many scientific studies showing the effectiveness) should be banned, lest it seemed like condoning drug use. When the crisis finally crescendo-ed into the new - in a few days the Governor used Executive Power to allow such a program to be born. How many more people will fall to this epidemic before the time elapse from the Governor's action to the actual implementation of a program begins? How long will we ignore the underlying roots of the epidemic.

Thus I am torn. This is my state. I live and work in two of the more progressive communities within the state.

But our legislature has crossed a new line of reactionary actions - on the one hand supporting those who shriek that there is a danger of Muslim infiltration into legislative bodies (as if!) who will pass Sharia Law - and on the other hand actually pass theocratic laws that put religious doctrine over democracy. In the next moment - we learn of a growing health serious health risk within one of our communities, which has been hamstrung from addressing due to an earlier such law.

I would hate to harm the economy in the state, and even more in my two communities. However, this state has taken a dramatic, and extreme turn to the far reactionary religious right. If the only form of adrenaline shot to the heart (figuratively speaking - per dramatic wake up from a near comatic state) is from a national response ... so be it.

Given the super majorities in the legislature, and our governor's eye on pleasing the Tea Party with presidential aspirations - without such an adrenaline shot, I fear we are only going to have to live under numerous other extremist, ironically Sharia-like (but preference to fundamentalist Christian theology) laws in the coming year. Laws that will take years to twist through courts to be over turned, or negated by future legislative bodies.

I started this post with an enthusiastic hi! I remember you fondly. Sorry that I spent the rest of the post throwing my depressing view of our state's current state of affairs.

Peace,

salin