As a single mother, a woman and someone who grew up in Mississippi, I have immense pride in my home state for rejecting Proposition 26, which would have banned abortion, in vitro fertilization and many types of birth control.

The move to put Prop 26 on the ballot was a highly strategic one — conservatives knew the only state with a fighting chance to pass the measure would be Mississippi. After all, they will vote religion, not morality. They are simple, uneducated people who are ignorant to major political issues. Hell, they’re racist, sexist, inbred rednecks, right?

All of those stereotypes are grossly unfair and blew up in the face of the right wing that sought to take advantage of the state’s faith to advance their political agenda.

These stereotypes exist not only in politics, but here on campus, as well.

A cartoon which appeared in the Oct. 21 issue of The Daily Orange depicted West Virginians as ‘banjo playing, sister kissing and squirrel eating.’ It haphazardly lumped an entire culture into a stereotype that has plagued the South for decades. This is downright offensive, and I have a hard time believing a similar characterization of other cultures, such as African Americans or Latinos, would have been tolerated.

That said, concern over Prop 26 wasn’t unwarranted. The fact that it was put on the ballot at all says something about how unsettled the abortion debate is in this country. For some, at least.

Mississippi proved that you can use every scare tactic possible to evoke people’s emotions and prey on their faith. But when it comes down to one person alone in a booth, he or she does the right thing.

California voters overturned gay marriage in 2008 with Proposition 8, which goes to show that even states thought to be more modern or progressive than the Deep South still can’t overcome partisan politics when it comes to personal freedom.

What isn’t getting the attention it should is not the failed attempt of a small, extreme religious group to circumvent Roe v. Wade, but the overwhelming success of a measure in more than 14 states to require voters show government-issued ID at the polls.

The supposed goal of this bill is to fight voter fraud — an occurrence the Brennan Center for Justice says is rarer than being struck by lightning.

What it actually does is make millions of voters ineligible to vote. It’s a modern-day Jim Crow law, adding a tax onto voting that will leave the most vulnerable populations unable to participate in our democracy. And that’s happening everywhere.

Rebekah Jones

Senior geography and newspaper journalism major

Jones is a staff writer and a former editor at The Daily Orange.

Published on November 9, 2011 at 12:00 pm