Opinion: In today’s pages: White people, gay marriage, MySpace bullies
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Columnist Gregory Rodriguez explores whites’ fear of decline:
Hillary Rodham Clinton is right. She has the broader and whiter political coalition, so she should, by all rights, be the Democratic presidential nominee.After all, in other realms of the political process, we routinely refer to ‘black districts’ or ‘Latino districts’ and speak of the necessity of those jurisdictions to be represented by black or Latino elected officials. Well, then, because the American population is 66% white, maybe the United States is a de facto white district that should be represented accordingly. Don’t scoff at the idea. Ethnic and racial self-determination have been underlying factors in the formation of modern nations.
Author Glenn Hurowitz outs household products -- from Oreos to Burt’s Bees soap -- that use destructive palm oil as an ingredient. George Mason University’s Ilya Somin says Proposition 99 would actually block meaningful eminent domain reform. And environmentalists Graham Chisholm and Joel Reynolds explain why taking the middle road worked on the Tejon Ranch development.
The editorial board explains why the June 3 election for the 2nd Supervisorial District matters, and argues that prosecutors are misusing a federal statute in their drive to prosecute Lori Drew for alleged online harassment of Megan Meiers on MySpace.
Today’s letters page is devoted to reader reactions to the gay marriage ruling. San Diego’s Charles Crawford looks ahead to November:
By being shortsighted and selfish, I fear that my fellow gay and lesbian brothers and sisters have handed our community a pyrrhic victory.... [I]n the most crucial election year in my lifetime, we have now unleashed the sleeping tiger on the right, and not only will we likely lose the constitutional battle to ban gay marriage, we have likely just handed John McCain California and the White House along with it.