Monday, November 3, 2008

American History


It's a very historic time to be living in the United States. Tomorrow night may be the night that America elects their first black President. It's also the first time a female is listed on a ballot as Vice President.
Now I could go on and on about the Presidential race and list a thousand reasons why Obama-Biden is the only hope for America and why McCain-Palin would be as big a nightmare as Bush, but I've got another election issue I'd like to address. One that hasn't been getting sketches on SNL.
I live in California and there's this little thing that Californian's are voting on called Proposition 8. Proposition 8, if passed, would change the California Constitution to say that "Only marriage between a man and a woman is valid in the state of California."
Like with all the elections issues there have been a barrage of advertisements for and against this Proposition. Here is an example of a Vote Yes on Prop 8 commercial - a girl comes home from school and tells her mommy that today in school she learned that "a princess can marry a princess and a prince can marry a prince." The mother looks completely horrified and broken. Then the ad claims they are "Restoring Marriage & Protecting California Children."
(I thought about linking to the actual ad but I do NOT want to give it anymore airtime than its gotten. If you want to see it, it's on youtube).
"Restoring Marriage & Protecting California Children."
Really?
Restoring marriage to what...... the blazing glory of the 52% divorce rate heterosexual people have given it?
Protecting children from what? THAT is something I have been really bothered by since seeing the first ad. If my grade 2 student or even my kindergardner came home one day and told me a prince could marry a prince and a princess could marry a princess I would do the following: Tell them that yes, that's right. And then maybe make them an afterschool snack.
If there are any parents out there reading this - can someone please explain to me what would be so horrifying if children knew this little tidbit of information?
If you don't think schools should be teaching children about marriage, okay. Fine. Then make a Proposition that says "California's public education system should not be allowed to teach children about marriage"
But here's the kicker, your little prince or princess is probably going to have a classmate who has 2 dads... or 2 moms. Why not let kids know that their little buddy Johnny isn't a freak because the 2 people that care for him, and love him and look out for him are both women or both men. Taking away johnny's moms or dads the right to be married means your also taking away Johnny's rights to have 2 legal parents. So how, precisely are you protecting children?!
The only thing that's being protected by Prop 8 is ignorant, scared people's right to promote discrimination and hate.
If you're voting in California, please VOTE NO on Prop 8.

5 comments:

Joan said...

A. FREAKING. MEN.

Anonymous said...

They voted yes. Although it's still going to be fought legally. Again. Oy Vey. Imagine the things we could do with the money being spent on this....

Jennie said...

sad that florida and arizona voted the same way. arizona changed their law to ensure that marriage only exists between a man and a woman to ensure that gays can't adopt.
oh, and nevada out-voted affirmative action... uhm... irony!

Anonymous said...

http://www.thedailybeast.com/blogs-and-stories/2008-11-06/you-can-forget-my-taxes/

Melissa Etheridge has some to say on the matter.

L said...

Very nicely put. Keith Olbermann brought up the fact that until 1967, it was illegal for black people to marry white people in sixteen of our states. Think how ridiculous that law seems to the majority of us now. Hopefully in the future a law that prohibits gay people to marry will see just as ridiculous to the majority of Americans.