The Color Purple

By Zamboni

Between multiple catnaps and a few minutes' joy with a Kitty Tease, our attention has been grabbed by two completely unrelated stories today.

One is this New York Times piece on whether a surge in voter turnout by African Americans — anticipating Senator Obama as the Democratic nominee — will endanger the Republicans' hold on their usually solid South.

The other is yesterday's decision by the California state Supreme Court to legalize gay marriage.

Why connect the two? It's a matter of color — purple, actually.

Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics, got it all started with this comment to The Times. "This [African-American turnout] is going to encourage the purple-ization of red states," he said. "It's going to make red states purple-ish over time."

Hmmm, we thought. Purple — the color you get when you combine red and blue. And, coincidentally, the color that right-wing evangelist Jerry Falwell said was associated with gay people. (Back in 1999, the late, unlamented Mr. Falwell accused the Teletubby Tinky-Wink of promoting the homosexual agenda, partly because he was, well, purple.)

And you know what? In light of recent events, maybe purple is the best color to be. It all came together in our minds when we heard San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom speak to a crowd of supporters on the gay marriage decision and say, "As California goes, so goes the nation."

Here in feline world — where we're weary of humans getting into cat fights over such self-evident issues as equality — we can only hope that the United States is heading toward becoming a More Purple Union.

One in which everyone is treated equally, despite whom they sleep with.

One served by a President who is a living, breathing example of the opportunity that only America can offer.

And one in which there's far less division between the Red and the Blue.