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July 09, 2007
One Nation, Indivisible but Fractured
By Peter BrownCONCORD, N.H. - The recent decision in this once stalwart conservative state to legalize civil unions for gays makes New England the country's first region to completely bless such arrangements, and underscores the reality that America is divided by more than partisan politics.
Since the 2000 and 2004 elections spawned the stereotypes of differing Blue and Red Americas, it has become fashionable to argue that the notion of a country divided along political/geographic lines is both simplistic and exaggerated.
Of course all Americans, whether in Manhattan, New York or Manhattan, Kansas agree on the easy stuff - freedom, equality, prosperity, opportunity and justice.
Yet, the ways one tries to reach those goals can vary greatly. For those who don't see the vast differences among well-meaning people, try spending more time out of your own zip codes and see how the other half lives, literally.
The way that various states are dealing with the gay marriage/civil unions question is the best recent evidence of this reality, but it is by no means an isolated situation.
Should the Supreme Court overturn Roe v. Wade, the same would likely be true about the legality of abortion.
Some states in the Sun Belt and Rocky Mountain West would almost certainly greatly restrict or even ban abortion; in others there would be no change in the status quo. Even now, with the right to abortion still protected, there are efforts in some states for greater restrictions, while in others there are none.
Think this split American personality is just about hot-button social issues?
Think again.
Take taxes.
It would be easy to play the following game successfully:
For an unidentified state find out whether there is an income tax, the size or existence of a sales tax, the property-tax rates and other revenue-raising devices. Then predict whether that state is north or south of the Mason-Dixon Line, or bordered by either the Atlantic or Pacific Oceans.
The higher the tax bite, the more northerly and the closer it is to water. New Hampshire, which has no sales or income tax, might be the major exception to that rule, but it does have a small coastline.
The same generalization would probably work pretty well if the criteria was the amount of state government spending per resident, gun control restrictions or the frequency of death-penalty executions.
But, the legal status of the various issues among the states does not just reflect regional differences in political attitudes and lifestyles.
These differences in the law also are a product of the availability of methods that allow voters to change statute or the state's constitution directly by referendum.
The issue of same-sex unions illustrates this clearly.
Generally, those states where it is easy and traditional for voters to go around their elected officials by making law through ballot proposals-- many of which would clearly be in the Red America/leaning-Republican camp -- have banned same-sex unions.
But in those general Blue America/Democratic states without the political vehicle of state ballot proposals, or where it is very difficult to utilize, it has been the courts and the political leadership that have led the way toward legalizing same-sex unions.
In addition to the six New England states, where either the legislature and governor or the courts acted to change the law, New Jersey and Washington State recently joined the parade. And there are similar stirrings in other northern-tier states. New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer has introduced legislation that would legalize same-sex marriage, although and it has passed one house of the Legislature, but does yet appear to have the votes for passage in the other.
This, when over the last few years 23 southern, southwestern, Rocky Mountain and Midwestern states have banned same-sex marriage and in some cases civil unions via public referendums, most by very large margins.
We may, as the Pledge of Allegiance says, be "one nation, under God, indivisible" but that doesn't mean that we don't have a great deal of internal differences. Those who want to deny that should wake up to reality.
