The 17 Percent

A regular reader alerted me to a very interesting article in The New York Times from November (link here) about how rural American voters have vastly more political power than urban and suburban voters because both the Electoral College and the US Senate makeup heavily favors rural states with small populations.

For instance, the combined population of both North Dakota and South Dakota is only about 4 percent of California, yet North/South Dakota have twice as many senators.

As a result, 17 percent of the country can effectively push the Senate majority over to conservative Republicans. As well, the sparse rural states can give the White House to the Republican popular vote loser, as happened in two out of the three last Presidential elections.

What does this mean for LGBT Americans? Conservative rural values, which do not represent the majority of this country, dominate politics and force Americans to live under a religious code which most Americans don't support. A majority of Americans support LGBT rights and same sex marriage. However, their voices and votes are silenced by the rural, conservative religious minority.

LGBT Americans essentially are subject to the tyranny of a reactionary minority, a practice which is both decidedly un-democratic and decidedly un-American.

And it's only going to get worse during the next four years.