Yes! Er, No!
For my fellow Californians, zodmicrobe reminds me that there is an important proposition on the ballot tomorrow, Proposition 8, which seeks to amend the California constitution to make gay people second-class citizens. This proposition was rammed into the ballot by the Mormon church, which has spent tens millions of dollars in misleading advertising to get people to vote for it. It’s a might confusing in this season of "Yes We Can" to vote "No" on something, but there you have it, NO ON 8.
Non-Californians, disregard, and feel free to marry someone of your own sex (should it be legal in your state).
For Floridians
Just would like to chime in that any Floridians should vote against Amendment 2 (aka Proposition 2, The Florida Marriage Amendment, The Marriage Protection Amendment.) This amendment to Florida’s constitution would strictly define marriage as that a legal union between a man and a woman.
The unforeseen consequence of adding this to Florida’ constitution is it may take away health care and other domestic partner benefits from unmarried couples. Since there are already laws in Florida that prohibit gay marriage, this clearly is just a tool being used to draw out more conservative votes and was not thought out carefully enough.
Re: For Floridians
As a Floridian, I agree 100%!
Re: For Floridians
I agree completely. I was devastated today to hear that someone in my Oscar Wilde class accidentally voted yes on Prop 2 (apparently the wording was confusing, although I didn’t find it to be). So we need to get out the word about No on 2.
PR8
I was looking at the logo and mentally “pronouncing” it as “Prate.” With the circle and slash, I guess it would say “DON’T PRATE!”
Even in my very-liberal Sonoma County, I see pro-Prop 8 signs around town. It’s infuriating.
At least some of my friends have taken to stealing and trashing those very signs. Vigilante justice at its best and little chance of legal consequences, too!
You and your friends are pathetic. If you can’t handle someone else differing in their views so you resort to juvenile stealing and trashing you are an absolute wanker of wanks. It’s hooligans like you and your friends that give the democratic process and free speech rights a bad name.
The real issue here is 4 judges overruled the will of 61% of Californians who voted on this issue in 2000. If you morons are content in letting judges take power as the new Kings and Queens and grant us ‘rights’ at their discretion, you are in for a real bad day when they decide to exercise their ‘powers’ to take away a right that touches on your doorstep.
And I would say it takes a warped mind to think that the overturning of 6000 years of multicultural, transcontinental tradition is somehow taking away someones ‘right’. What a joke. How about the ‘right’ of a person to live as societies have lived since the beginning of civilization? NOWHERE on Earth has a society ever decided to redefine marriage to include same sex.
It’s not a ‘right’ it’s a redefinition.
At least admit that before you go supporting the ‘rule’ of 4 judges to impose it on an entire state.
The fact that it irritates you to the point of crotchety old man arguments means you only take up free speech as a cause only when it serves your agenda. People have the right to speak freely and express their views, but I also have the right to tell them to shut the hell up. A number of them were on public property, too, which becomes free game once they leave.
9 Judges overruled Plessy vs. Ferguson in Brown vs. Board of Education and overturned laws that provided for segregated schools. Was that undemocratic? 9 Judges also overruled Loving v. Virginia, which struck down Anti-miscegenation laws. Was that a travesty of democracy? No, so what’s different here? The rights of the few need to be defended when the majority oppresses them, and we’ve proven that again and again. The only conclusion that can come from ”gay marriage is wrong” is that homosexual love is something less than heterosexual love. Are you enough of a bigot to say that?
Great job pulling out “transcontinental”, too bad six countries in the world have already approved gay marriage. Idiot.
It IS a redefinition. Want to know why? Because the old definition is irrelevant in modern world! We’ve “redefined” marriage to include “people of different races” in 1967. Was that wrong, to strike down racism in our marriage laws because it was a “tradition”?
Way to go about hiding under a mask of anonymity. Itching to put your white hood on tonight and go to a Klan meeting?
Where is your ‘tolerance’ for someone else’s opinion when you are telling them to shut the hell up? Or worse yet -ripping down their opinion as it’s voiced in the form a sign? Juvenile and fascist -that’s is exactly what it is. Nobody’s opinion allowed but yours right?
For you to equate the struggle that blacks endured through the civil rights movement with the ‘gay rights’ movement is an insult to the black community. If I were black I would be outraged at people like you hijacking the civil rights movement to promote a sex and sexuality based movement. The definition or classification of one’s sexuality is ambiguous (what really makes a person ‘homosexual’- a thought? A feeling? An act? A series of acts? A ‘coming out’ party?). Ethnicity is not.
On this issue, those who seek to keep marriage AS IT HAS ALWAYS BEEN THROUGHOUT THE ENTIRE HISTORY OF CIVILIZATION ( or at least until 2001 i.e. Netherlands), make no judgment on homosexual vs. heterosexual love. It is a judgment that marriage is best left as it has always been because that is what is best for society, children and families. (And by transcontinental I should clarify as being trans cultural. I think of Canada, Netherlands etc. as all being part of the same European western cultural model as opposed to India, Africa (excluding South Africa) etc.)
Even then, is it bigoted to say homosexuality is ‘less than’ heterosexuality? Does homosexuality propagate the species? No. It is therefore inherently ‘less than’ heterosexuality. Should those who claim to be homosexual have any less rights than everyone else? No. But they should not have the ‘right’ to have an entire socio-familial institution CHANGED AND EXPANDED to suit their wishes. After all, gays can get married just like heterosexuals -JUST NOT TO MEMBERS OF THE SAME SEX BECAUSE THAT IS NOT WHAT MARRIAGE IS.
Accept it- the majority of people think gay marriage is just not right and I would dare say most people still think (although they may not say) homosexuality is just NOT NORMAL. Why? Because it is NOT NORMAL. And it’s not ‘bigoted’ to say or think that.
And that really is the bottom line here isn’t it? You really want to see homosexuality -treated as and thought of as ENTIRELY NORMAL AND THE SAME AS HETEROSEXUALITY. Well, I have news- IT’S NOT.
And this is where the civil rights parallel breaks down. Because at the end of the day with the civil rights movement, the essence of discriminatory laws contained the twisted belief and argument that blacks were in someway inferior to whites. And ultimately there was NO WAY one could logically make this argument so consequently the ‘court’ of logic tossed the racist laws into the waste bin of invalidity where they belong.
Homosexuality on the other hand cannot hold the same weight because it’s identity is so ambiguous. And therefore the ‘demand for the same marital rights(!!)’ as the rest of the population cannot ever hold the same weight as any civil rights argument. Racism ultimately DOES NOT MAKE SENSE. For people to refuse to regard homosexual relations EXACTLY THE SAME as heterosexual relations and consequently withhold the same sanction or blessing (in the form of marriage) is not an ‘ism’ or a form of bigotry, it is something that in logical terms is ‘valid’ or in the eyes of the general public (as is shown over and over again by the voting records on this issue) something that ‘just makes sense’.
Look, homosexuals have all the same rights as everyone else –civil unions, visitation rights, etc. Why now demand ‘marriage’? Because the demand now is for everyone everywhere in EVERYWAY to regard them and their sexuality- not just TREAT them (which I think they should be) but regard them as 100% exactly the same –and as I’ve shown – it (homosexuality and the consequential relations involved) is not.
I am not hiding behind ‘anonymous’ – I do not have a ‘live journal’ account, don’t care to register for one and besides –it appears YOU are the I should fear one putting on the white hood and going out under the cover of darkness to steal my signs in such tolerant acts of unbigoted love.
Good lord, I just came here to learn about protagonists.
my favorite… i forget which celeb i read had said it, but it he called it “Prop H8”.
Thanks. Please say a prayer to your chosen Universe/Diety/Synchronicity and keep fingers crossed. I really hope to marry my partner on or near our 10th anniversary in January.
I live in Santa Cruz, and I think it’s pretty clear how voting is going to go in THIS district.
I will be terribly disappointed in people in general if it passes.
I had a really long reply to this written out, but when I went to post it my internet crapped out and I lost it. Oh well, it was too long anyway so i’ll edit.
One question i’ve been mulling over lately: if the Yes on 8ers are so worried about gay marriage being taught in schools, where do they stand on domestic partnerships being taught? If both are, as they say, “equal” under California law, wouldn’t DP be just as big a threat to THE CHILDREN (I think the Yes On 8 campaign is being run by Helen Lovejoy) as gay marriage? They’re so quick to say that marriage and domestic partnership are already “exactly the same,” but maybe they should scale that back. If that were true, wouldn’t schools be able to teach the exact same things the Yes crowd is so afraid of, except with “Domestic Partnership” substituted for “Marriage?” If Prop 8 has nothing to do with bigotry, ask a supporter how they feel about Domestic Partnership being taught in schools. I think it’s foolish to make yourself believe that your only opposition to gay marriage is the word marriage.
I also think the very nature of the school argument is hypocritical. The Yes on 8 crowd really go out of their way to say that it has nothing to do with bigotry, but then they focus in on their own fear of their children being taught that a male/male or female/female marriage is just as valid as a traditional marriage. Isn’t that bigotry? The belief that one group of people is less than another?
But, of course, I live in a Suburb of San Diego and the ratio of Yes signs to No signs is sickening. 15:1, at least. It bums me out.
gay marriage is legal in my state, the third one in the nation where this is so. so haha, suckers!
re: that, if you happen to be a connecticuter like me, vote no on question 1, it’s a covert attempt to attack gay marriage and abortion rights.
I’m sorry to hear another religion is getting it’s way by throwing money at something to make it go away.
I don’t think non-Californians should disregard this. There are Mormon missionaries knocking on our doors nearly everywhere around the world.
I’m not trying to crush Mormonism, I’m only trying to crush Prop 8. Crushing Mormonism falls outside the purview of this journal.
As someone who would’ve been forbidden to marry the love of my life 50 years ago (before Loving vs. Virginia), the idea that this type of bigotry is alive & well in a supposed “progressive” state (let alone the United States of America) saddens me deeply. I truly hope that rationality prevails in every state trying to live up to the ideal of equal rights for all.