The emotional side of Prop 8Follow

Reading that almost made me cry; it's just so heartfelt.

I'm such an emotional little girl.

The person in the quote is asking "why?"

This is why it's so important to have many people in a population who have studied history. Not just a smattering of facts and dates, but in-depth knowledge about culture, society, family, religious, working, educational and political life at all stages of the past.

It's only when those things about our past are understood, and it's only when you have enough knowledge and acceptance of alien cultures that you can step outside of your own culture that you grew up in, and then really SEE why we are the way we are. See all the assumptions, both conscious and unconscious that collectively we make all the time about how we collectively and individually should live life.

A modern Social Progressive or Liberal will plaintively ask "why?" Prop 8 passed, when it seems so obviously morally flawed. By modern standards, homosexuality is just one of those variations of life, nothing wrong with it. If it's not to your tastes no one is asking or expecting you to participate in it. So there's no reason why ****** can't just get on with their lives and their sex-lives and their love-lives intermingled with straights inside one big community.

But of course we know why Prop 8 passed. We're slowly unwinding from a thousand years of organised religions that permeated almost every areas of people's daily lives: religions that were practised and thought about and mentioned casually in speech not just once a day, but at least several times every hour. (Did you know, that a hundred and a bit years ago, newspaper articles didn't refer to people in general as consumers? They didn't call them citizens, and they didn't call them people. If they weren't referring to some-one by name, they referred to "souls". For example, "85 souls lost their jobs yesterday when the Bradley Cotton Mill closed down.")

Organised religions permeated society so much that they played the major formative role in most people's thoughts, in their upbringing and education. The minds of most parents and teachers were formed by the same source. And those organised religions were vehement about the inherently evil and sinful nature of homosexual behaviour. Sinfulness was important. It was important to be avoided at all costs. Being sinful, or allowing sinfulness, could cost you everything that was most important in your life. It would cost you your immortal life and happiness, and it would cost you your place in society, in your family, your workplace, and your circle of friends.

Social change doesn't happen overnight. It takes decades and centuries to permeate into every corner of culture and society. We are still getting from "how things were back then" to "how we want things to be".

If you don't understand where we have come from, you don't understand the root origins of people's attitudes that you want to change. If you don't understand the actual origins, you can end up wasting effort arguing or fighting the wrong thing when you want change.

Most straight people who are homophobic take their natural and perfectly right personal feeling of "ickyness" and "wrongness" when contemplating homosexual sex, and extrapolate out that personal reaction of profound bodily feeling of wrongness to everyone else. They unconsciously assume that if this thing is wrong for themselves, then it's wrong for others to do it, and wrong to spread it around society by being condoned when they do it. And they feel completely justified in their feeling of "it's wrong to do full stop" because they have Holy books that back them up, and entire religions and stratas of society that back them up. They've got 1000s of years of social practise to back them up.

Gbaji, I'm not talking about you.

These people need to be reassured that their souls, their hope for life after death, or their personal integrity is not going to be jeopardized if homosexuals run around with all the same rights and obligations as straights. They need to be told they have to convert people one by one, personally, to a path that they think will bring them to heaven with them, that they can't use instruments of government to safely shepherd people to heaven.

And they especially need to be taught that even if brussel sprouts makes them vomit, other people should be allowed to eat brussel sprouts, and that no-one is going to force-feed brussel sprouts to them if they are made legal. This last is particularly important for all the agnostic and atheist homophobes.

Edited, Nov 11th 2008 8:15am by Aripyanfar

Here's the video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XkzwJXDZ7aU

Wow.

I woke up today like any other day, indifferent. I'd stopped caring about the fight of gay marriage long ago. I've never really cared about the fight for gay rights. I just don't have the strength to wake up every day with my teeth and fists clenched. I'm not a fighter, and I'm not an activist. I am, however, a damn good mediator. I love the bargaining and the balance of compromise. I stopped caring about gay issues. Trying to compromise with the opposition in the case of gay rights is infuriating at best. I gave up, and today I am truly ashamed of myself.

I watched that video, I read the transcript, I marveled at this man who I don't know and only recognize as a talking head on the news channels that I skip over while surfing. This man, with little to no invested interest in this cause, cares more about gay rights than I do. I woke up today, and came to the realization that I am part of the problem.

I'm stepping off the path of least resistance today. No more diplomacy. No more bargaining. The opposition is wrong, I deserve the same rights as everyone else. No same-but-equal ******** compromises. Take your "but you still have the right to marry a woman" and shove it up your ***. You are wrong.

Be prepared for the rate downs! The bigots are stealthy!

Nexa

Makes me feel a little less guilty for constantly shoving my own opinion down the collective forum throat anyway. What am I saying...I don't feel guilty anyway.

Nixnot powers, ACTIVATE!

Nexa

Now I'm honestly infuriated about my benefits at work too. FedEx's benefits provider redid their coverage and payments this year, so everyone had to re-apply for our benefits package. My partner does not have medical benefits since he quit his job in Feb. He is working now, but they're on call and part time positions, so he is still on my domestic partner medical benefits.

Earlier this year, when I was getting him put under my coverage, I had to basically prove to the company that Leo was not related to me in any way, and that he had been living with me for x amount of time. It took two weeks of phone calls, faxing, and arguing to get him covered by my insurance. I asked a married coworker of mine if he had to go through this to get his wife covered. He said that all he had to do was check a box for "Married" and fill out his wife's name and social security number.

This time around, when I had to re-apply for benefits, I noticed another infuriating occurrence. I'd forgotten to put Leo back under my coverage at first, I only realized it on the summary page where my monthly payment was nearly 1/3 what it was. I backtracked, and put Leo under my coverage, and went back to the summary page. There, I found two columns. One for pre-tax deductions, and one for post-tax. All of my medical payments are now post-tax. I only have Leo covered in my medical insurance, but with him on there, even my dental plan is post-tax, and I can only assume that if I had vision coverage, that would be there as well.

How is this not wrong? How is this not denying me the same rights?

You totally get me.

One of our clients has a guy who pretty much stays at her house, picks up after hear, cooks for her, and keeps her head on straight. She's a basket case and really needs him around to keep her on track.

The other day, he was telling a co-worker of mine how he found a letter the other day that praised Angie* for "making a good life for you and Nathan*." Nathan jokingly said to my co-worker, "I am not her husband, I already have a husband!"

My co-worker came to me laughing about it.

That night was the vice-presidential debates, and the next day at lunch everyone at the office was talking about it. The topic of same-sex marriage came up, and this same co-worker was vehemently against it. She actually looked me dead in the face and said, "I think that if they were to raise children they'd grow up to be bigoted against heterosexuals." When I pressed her to explain that, she continued to say that she was sure that any child raised in a homosexual home would be taught that all heterosexuals are horrible and hate homosexuals.

She then went on to say, "I mean, I love Nathan and all, but I just think that gay marriage is wrong."

I just stared at her. The hypocrisy, hate, and bigotry astounds me.

Earlier this year, I had noticed that Nathan's health insurance went up. When I mentioned it in front of this and another co-worker (who no longer works here), I was told that he had herpes. I wasn't aware of that, it's really none of my business. When I said as much, they both looked at me dumbfounded and said practically at the same time, "Well, he is gay."

I do try to amend ignorant statements like this when and where I can, but it seems to do absolutely no good. I don't understand how people can consider a homosexual to be less than they are. Whether or not they even realize they are doing it. It honestly makes me very, very sad, and at times just sick to my stomach.

*Names changed to protect them and me and my job, etc.

You're welcome!

Nexa

This, gbaji. This.

So you're basically saying your physical property is worth more than someone else's happiness.