Of course the big news story of the day, make that week, well, millenium, is that Barrack Obama won the presidency. But here in California the Yes vote on proposition 8 to ban gay marriage is a close runner up in the news cycle.

Today I read an article about how Governer Schwarzenegger is urging homosexuals to not give up and that their day would come. In the article there’s a quote from John Kirkpatrick who says:

We’re a democracy and our strength is that the majority wins the vote

It just floors me to hear statements like that. Two things you hear, especially during an election cycle are: “America is the greatest country” and “democracy is good, blah, blah, blah”. Well, I got news for everyone. Democracy is just a pretty sounding word for MOB RULES.

Democracy is not what makes America great. It never has and never will be. News flash, democracy has lead to votes against giving women and African Americans the right to vote, against allowing interracial marriages, against teaching evolution in schools, and most recently homosexual marriage. All of these issues have at one time or another been opposed by a majority of Americans. And they have voted that way many times over.

What makes American great is this forgotten document called the United States Constitution and Bill of Rights. It’s those pieces of paper that guarantee our rights. The will of the people, aka democracy, is the tool that would take them away.

How often have the people voted to add freedoms? Not very. Oh, they may come around eventually. But it’s the courts and the Constitution/Bill of Rights that keeps the majority from violating the rights of the minorites.

I consider it a failing of our schools that more people don’t understand that. And that usually the people who don’t understand it have never had to fight for their rights.