I’m not Keith Olbermann’s biggest fan.  Honestly, even today I feel like his passion is sometimes misdirected, but his comments supporting same-sex-marriage [ no on Proposition 8 ] are spot-on, and he deserves accoldades for his passion, professionalism and journalism.  Take a minute to hear his word and try to explain how you could possibly justify voting to change the constitution to segregate a portion of the population based on their sexual preferences.

Ranter

Deirdre Bourdet, left, and Leslie Caccamese spent Saturday with hundreds getting married in San Francisco, March 2004.

There are so many reasons that I’m proud to live in California, and a few that make my stomach turn.  I’ve used this blog to show my support for the rights of gay couples wanting to get married in California, and although I thought that I’d done my piece to help, seeing the press today brings tears of frustration to my eyes and renews the anger that I feel towards the majority of Californians that consider it acceptable to legislate discrimination.  Where is their conscience?

Right now my biggest hope is that I won’t have to explain to my daughters that we live in an environment that discriminates against people because of the color of their skin, where they go to church or their sexual orientation.  I hope that my daughters will know that all Americans share the same rights and privileges under law because we, as a country, have voted to maintain those rights.  Ultimately, I hope that our “don’t ask, don’t tell” military will continue to defend those rights so that someday it might be possible for all world citizens to share those same rights.  For now, I’ll tell them that how Connecticut does it is right and that California will catch up at some point in the future – hopefully sooner rather than later.

Reading through some of the political pieces that are out there and even trolling through craigslist.org, the arguments against gay marriage are so far out there it’s difficult to completely understand how people can put those words together and still sleep at night.  Seriously, to clarify for those of you looking to support the ban on gay marriage, this isn’t going to get rid of gays, force your children to be homosexual, teach gay sex in school, or change what it means for you to be married to your husband or wife.  It’s not going to change anything for you – other than allowing you to sleep at night because you know that you’ve worked to uphold the constitution.  If your religious beliefs that are impacting your beliefs of what constitutes husband and wife, I would recommend that you look really deep and make sure that the institution that creates your church is translating the words of the bible correctly and not interpreting them to meet what the church wants to continue their stranglehold on it’s flock.

For those of you that continue to support equality for everyone and the rights of gays to marry, I applaud you and wish you success.  I will continue to fight from my stand here and in the community until we have distanced ourselves from the blight of discrimination.

Ranter

One article I read quoted some idiot man saying, “God says marriage is supposed to be between a man and a woman.”  What?  Are you kidding?  Come on people – I don’t care what your religious convictions are, God didn’t write the bible and if he’s talking to you, I have a jacket I’d like you to put on.  Marriage, as we’re talking about it today, is a civil and judicial process, and accordingly it has nothing to do with church, God, or your beliefs.  Separation of Church and State, remember?

These Catholic and Mormon churches have a captive audience to preach to every week, and I’m wondering how they feel about the homosexuals in their midst and congregations.  Are these people less worthy of savior and God, to the point where they should be treated differently?  I believe most preists would say “No, they’re equally worthy, but…  It’s that “but” that’s disconcerting to me, beause it’s really saying that everything in the preceding statement is untrue – and that’s how the churches are coming across.  Mormons believe that polygamy is an acceptable practice, ultimately creating a significantly larger problem for the people and finances of this country – why is that any more okay?  Marriage is between a man and a woman and another woman and another woman.  Yeah, I think I remember seeing that in the bible, too.

This is about civil rights – it’s no different than women’s rights, the rights of blacks, or the rights that we, as a country, afford to foreigners in our country.  It’s time for us, as a race of people, to stand up for equality regardless of our differences and stop hiding behind religion, heritage or the bible when we don’t like something.

Ranter

It’s obvious from the polls and from the results that Californians don’t understand the ramifications to a large number of Californians.  They claim same sex marriage is a religious issue and I’m calling bullshit.  This is an issue of human rights and all you Catholics and Mormons out there that are supporting this belief that it’s okay to legislate discrimination need to start voting with your conscience, because your child-molesting, polygamyst lifestyles are next.  If you’re going to bring together church and state it’s only a matter of time before the state tries to make decisions about your lifestyles and right now I can’t wait to cast my vote on that issue.

One of the Proposition 8 strategists, Jeff Flint, is quoted as saying:

“I think the voters were thinking, well, if it makes them happy, why shouldn’t we let gay couples get married. And I think we made them realize that there are broader implications to society and particularly the children when you make that fundamental change that’s at the core of how society is organized, which is marriage.”

From my perspective – as a straight, married male with two young children, that sounds like a load of crap.  Society isn’t fundamentally organized by marriage – it’s organized by equality.  Even the churches preach that we should treat everyone equally – except the homosexuals, I guess, they should be treated differently.  I’m surprised they can still come to church… I guess that’s probably next.  I’m not a religious zealot, and I don’t believe that this is really what any God would approve of.  The Maker isn’t going to make people worthy of less than any other people.

At the same time this was happening in California, Florida and Arizona quietly passed similar legislation with similar bullshit reasoning.  And, I really hope, when all this plays out over the next few years that the American public will begin to realize that the things we hold most dear – the democracy, equality, and right to free speach and religion – can be taken away based on race, gender, sexual preference and religion.  Don’t think it can’t happen, because the more we take away from one group of people the more likely it is that everyone risks losing something.

Ranter

I’m against Proposition 8 – let people marry who they want.  He’s for it – believes there’s something wrong with the law.  Figuring that didn’t make much sense I asked, “what do you think is wrong with the law?”  Now, I’m not much of a legal mind, but his response saying “it’s not written correctly” sounded odd to me. He’s married to a Fillipino, so I added in there, “how would you feel if they said you couldn’t stay married to your wife because she’s not the same race?”

He paused for a minute and said, “I’m still voting for Prop 8, because it’s not written right.”  Now I was getting a little frustrated – this didn’t make sense to me.  We’re not even talking about writing a law here we’re talking about repealing a law that’s already been written.  So, I asked my question again, “seems like a stupid response considering how its written isn’t the point.  Are you voting to legislate discrimination or not?”

His response: “It’s not written right – marriage is between a man and a woman.”  After that and my comment about the next change being race related we parted ways and finished our Trick or Treating with the kids separately.  How do you feel?

Ranter

Apparently not all mormons feel the same about California’s Proposition 8, which I guess leaves the dissenters wondering why they’re spending so much time, money and energy donating to the church when their fundamental beliefs about human rights contradict those of that same church.  This same supposition could hold true for all of California’s Catholic bigots bishops (because we know how some of them feel about little boys), some of the Christians and many of the Orthodox Jews.  These groups seem to feel that they have the most to lose by controlling the sacred rights of marriage between a husband and wife.

Right now it would appear that he Mormons are receiving the most negative attention caused by their support of the Yes on 8 campaign, but at the same time it’s my belief that church and state should remain divided and any organization that chooses to support a cause as controversial as removing human rights from a class of people deserves to be treated with equally as any other – church or not – and they open themselves up to any critisiscm that comes of it.  At the same time companies like Apple are showing their worth committing $100,000 to defeat Proposition 8 and putting their money where their mouth is – showing that big business isn’t all evil.

Of course, it shouldn’t bode well for supporters of Prop 8 knowing that the parents of children featured in the latest prop 8 ad are now demanding that the commercial using their children be taken off the air.  That same ad, suggesting that now California teachers will have to teach same sex union in classrooms is being condemned by educators, and even actors are almost universally vocalizing their oppostion to Prop 8.  Look around and you may quickly find that the religious zealots are pretty much the only people supporting this cause.  Where do you want to be when this comes to a head?

Vote No on Prop 8.

Ranter