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- EDITORIAL:

The Tyranny of the Majority

n Maine last week, the majority spoke. OK, maybe

not the actual‘ majority, the majority stayed home. The

majority in Maine that went out to prevent a minor

ity from having rights was about 16% of the regis-
tered voters. That is the ”majority” that the Christian right
is raving about now in this most recent victory in the cause
of denying civil rights.

Well at least it couldn't happen in Vermont, right?

Wrong. The word going around is that there is a move to
put citizen's initiatives of this sort into practice in Vermont.
The move is being pushed by the Act 60 foes to make sure
that the people continue to control their government. What
this translates to, though, by historical example, is the re-
moval of minority rights by a majority, like in Maine, like
in Colorado, like in California with Prop 209. What does
this mean in Vermont? It means that Take it To the People,
if they are able to insure that marriage and its associated
rights are denied to us, will then begin to dismantle the
other rights we have worked so hard to achieve.

Very simply,Take It To The People is motivated by the idea
that if the majority of the people want something, then it
must be right. This idea is so obviously reactionary and so
dangerous it surprises me that it would even be used in
Vermont. Or has the National numbing about democracy
been. so deep that it has dumbed down this population
entirely? Majorities have made many extensive decisions

- about the fate of minorities. A majority of Germans wanted

the final solution. A majority of Southerners wanted sla-
very and, when that was gone, smaller majorities went
around in mobs dispensing justice. When Take It To The
People says majority, they simply mean us and them, those
who have the rights and privileges vs. those of us who
don't because of our numbers.

We have come a long way from our long history of op-,
pression in this country on so many levels Women —— Af-
rican Americans, Native Americans, the working poor. For
the majority American history, the nation has been con-
trolled by a small number of land owning men. But we
also have as part of our past a disruption of the oppres-
sion of minorities. There have been heroic decisions by the
supreme court to protect minority rights to education,
intermarriage, unions, equal pay and grass roots move-
ments to maintain and establish fairness. But the vestiges
of our history still surround us — the urban poor, the flight
of union jobs to Mexico, prisons with disproportionate

_ numbers of people of color. Gay and lesbian people need

to understand how our rights are linked to everyone’s
rights. Gay men need to understand misogyny. We all need
to understand racism better. '

The‘ tyranny of the majority is ironic when you consider
that all the minorities combined they form the majority.
This is something that the minority in power doesn't want

“any ofus to understand and act on.