Early last summer, my husband and I moved the kids 10 miles east of Oakland, “through the tunnel” as they say around here, to the town of Lafayette. We decided to start to get a little benefit of our tax dollars and take advantage of Lafayette’s excellent public schools. (There was no way they were going to public schools in Oakland.)
While we knew that we would still be surrounded by blue state voters, we hoped that Contra Costa County would feel a little more balanced and normal than Oakland. We were thrilled to be leaving Ron Dellums and the mess that is the City of Oakland behind. But, alas, it is still a sea of Obama stickers and signs out here, although there are a few McCain/Palin signs and bumper stickers as well.
As soon as the national campaign started producing “McCain/Palin” signs, I took my children down to the local GOP office in Walnut Creek and got our sign and bumper stickers. On the way home, we talked about the importance of free speech and the responsibility of voting (today, my 13-year-old’s history class is holding a mock election on the presidential race and a handful of state propositions—results will be posted here).
Within a day of putting my “McCain” sign out in my front year, it was gone. Let me tell you, none of my neighbor’s Obama signs have gone missing. My husband and I were steamed. If he had more time, he said, he’d go get another sign and run electricity to it so that the thieves would get a nice jolt when they tried to take our next sign.
My mother brought me a new sign. This time, my husband put it up, making sure that it was securely embedded in the ground (he didn’t have time for his electricity experiment, unfortunately!). Again, after a day or so, it was gone.
Now my children were outraged. They just don’t understand why people would prevent us from publically expressing our political beliefs the same way they see their friends and neighors’ expressing their beliefs with their Obama/Biden signs and their "1.20.09" bumper stickers. My kids are learning a hard, but true, lesson about the realities of the “open-
minded liberal.” They don’t exist in great numbers. I do have friends who can agree to disagree and have respectful conversations about politics and the elections. But as a group, Bay Area liberals are intolerant and angry. And they can’t even allow a different voice to be heard.
But yesterday I cheered when I saw this sign on my way to my son’s soccer practice:
This pro-Proposition 8 household has clearly been having the same experience with their Prop. 8 signs as we’ve had with our McCain/Palin signs. But they did something about it. Next time we have our signs stolen, I’ll know what to do. Not only post a sign like this one, but make sure it’s got electricity running to it!