Leight, Rasch und mit Feuer

It was a bright, cool, perfect Tuesday morning this election day in Dayton, Ohio, when I got out my old bicycle and went over to the polling place. The people there were quite civil and friendly despite both sides feeling that major issues were at stake. No waiting, no lines, computer voting but with paper printout.

I can understand the thought of “What does one vote mean?” and “My vote won't make a difference.” And yet, beyond the remote but real effectiveness of that one vote, there is the additional fact involved that voting is an acknowledgement and reaffirmation of the fact of humanity, and all that it entails, which is infinite. I came out of the polling place feeling “Light, Rash, and with Fire:”

It seems almost incredible now that women were excluded from voting in the United States even during my mother's lifetime – a fact that she mentioned with anger even beyond the year 2000. The new suffrage law that resulted in the 19th Amendment passed the House by only one vote in 1918, because one representative's Mommy called him and told him to do the right thing. Just incredible. Florida and South Carolina did not ratify the 19th Amendment until 1969, Georgia and Louisiana until 1970, North Carolina until 1971, and Mississippi until 1984.

John Knox published in 1558, “The First Blast of the Trumpet against the Monstrous Regiment of Women,” pointing out among other things that it was un-Biblical to allow women such decision-making. Apparently Queen Elizabeth felt that Knox was, shall we say, a person in error. I heard when I was living in the UK in the 1990's that phrase “the monstrous regiment of women” used by women with that high-level, refined irony and sophisticated sarcasm of which the British seem so well endowed.