Perspectives

As a secular humorist, I believe context is everything. One of my favorite jazz albums is “Swiss Movement,” a 1969 classic featuring the trio of Les McCann, Eddie Harris and Benny Bailey. A breakout tune was “Compared to What,” with lyrics that go, “Tryin’ to make it real — compared to what?” It’s a song about context. The album cooks from beginning to end. This election — I offer a song for all seasons. What?

I am attempting to place the 2010 election cycle into a context that makes sense to me. One congressional race that is of particular interest is the U.S. House of Representatives District 24. As you may recall, Tom Feeney, while Florida Speaker of the House, personally created the district after the 2000 census, and, of course, it leans Republican. That Feeney lost the seat to Democrat Suzanne Kosmas is as much a testimony to Kosmas’ tenacity as it was to outright voter disgust with the many smarmy dealings of Feeney.

Kosmas wants to continue and is actually in a tougher race than the one she bravely waged against Feeney just two years ago. Her opponent is longtime Tallahassee establishment insider Florida Rep. Sandy Adams. I have been researching Adams’ voting record and nothing in particular stands out that would suggest she is anything but another camp follower of shopworn Republican economic banalities. She will attempt to campaign as a political outsider when she is anything but. She will publicize her virtues as a “Christian” candidate, a righteous Republican, who reflects real American family values.

Congresswoman Adams swallowed the Kool-Aid years ago when it came to reproductive choice. I always marvel at those women who would so easily institute the Republican equivalent of Islamic law, or Sharia, when it comes to the reproductive rights of America’s women. Do you have a daughter? Republican Sharia would have her handing over the keys to her body, at puberty, to the state. Adams is in that fervent camp.

Adams doesn’t support stem cell research. Why? I hear no rational explanation. But what is the morality of inhibiting research that seeks cures for diabetes, Parkinson’s disease, spinal cord injuries, Alzheimer’s disease, and a whole plethora of maladies and diseases? She voted “no” in 2006 to support stem cell research.

Oh, Florida’s gays? Well, Adams considers them second-class citizens unworthy of the same rights as all Floridians. Marriage is only between a man and a woman. Why? Because she personally knows what her God thinks in this regard. Period. End of story. Haven’t recent events amply demonstrated that America could use less, not more, religious fervor in the public realm? Is more Republican Sharia law good for America?

What about teaching evolution in our public schools? Rational, factual, modern? Established scientific fact? Not to Sandy Adams. She’d have creationism, if given her preferences, taught right alongside evolution. Yet another example of Republican Sharia science law masquerading as intellectually sound public policy.

Adams would like to ride the coattails of her religious values, her simplistic, myopic morality into public office to perpetuate the craven (timeless) Republican financial policies of trickle down economics — as discredited an economic policy as any in recent history.

That is the real context of this election.