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Alright.. here goes…

I really can’t wait till November 4th.  Not because of anticipation but because of anxiety.  It’s really driving me mental lately.  I try and not to get so wound up, but I can’t help it really.  When you are involved in the political process (e.g. voting), it tends to create some very real emotions in people.

Last week I helped 3 people at my office register to vote who have never voted before in their lives.  It was a great feeling.  I walked all over our offices and asked if everyone was registered to vote.  If they said no, then I asked if they’d like me to show them how to do so.  They were largely intimidated by the process… not understanding how it works, and if you HAD to vote on every single thing presented on the ballot or if you could just vote for President and nothing else.  I explained the process, what to expect, how to find out where to go, etc.  They seemed genuinely excited.

Where I work, we have several practicing Jehovah’s Witness and I got a very good education on their practice of abstaining from voting.  They believe they are on God’s time, God’s errand.  In essence they are here as ambassadors to Him and He directs the affairs of the world.  They don’t participate in a lot of “mortal” rituals as they are simply here on lease, acting in His name and waiting for His return and yada yada.  It was nice to learn about their concepts and how they approach it as a people.

So back to the topic at hand.  California, Arizona and Florida have propositions on the ballot to re-define their State Constitution to define marriage as between one man, and one woman.

I have read (ad-nauseam) both sides of the argument… in very great detail.

My conclusion is that it constitutes discrimination to support the enacting of such a proposition.

We are in a very unique period of time right now where the face of America will forever be changed.  In how we approach healthcare, finance, government, religion, war, etc.  We are at the tail end of an era… a depression, which means a new one will start anew shortly…

Concerning the bickering about same-sex unions, the best argument that I’ve been able to find from those who support California’s Proposition 8 is that it threatens the freedoms of religions to practice their beliefs as it relates to participation in public programs (school primarily).  They believe that if same-sex unions are made legal, that their children will be taught that it’s “okay” for two men or two women to be married and that violates the very core of their moral beliefs.  It’s a ridiculous assertion.  It’s just as ridiculous as thinking that teaching evolution in Science class will somehow interrupt religions from being able to believe what they want in Creationism.  Heaven forbid we educate children based on science (which is the study of the world around us by the way, not the study of the world as read in the Bible) and let them make up their own minds.

My primary irritation (of the religious backing) in supporting these measures is that it is entirely too arrogant and inappropriate for a religious body to impose their definition of morality on those who are in no way a part of their religious organization.

Catholics believe that their Priests shouldn’t marry.  That is their belief… that belief, however, doesn’t mean the Catholic Church can tell me (someone who isn’t Catholic nor has a desire to ever BE Catholic) that I too shouldn’t be allowed to marry if I’m a priest of my own religion, or to use contraceptives, or to have an abortion, or be required to baptize infants, etc.  Catholics are free to apply their principals to their adherents and apply disciplinary action to those who violate their principals as necessary.  If you sign up to be a Catholic, then you agree to their rules.  When you don’t want to live by their rules, you are free to NOT be a Catholic anymore.  Catholics are also free to kick you out for violating their rules.  Religion isn’t compulsory.

So here’s my opinion…

If your only objection to same-sex unions is a moral one, then you need a better argument.  No one gave you the right to prevent the rights of individuals who want nothing to do with your definition of morality.  God certainly did not give you that right or responsibility.  God deals with his children as He see’s fit.  Not as you see fit and certainly not as your religion sees fit.

Throughout history, equal rights have been denied to vast groups of people.  In hindsight, we look back and see how ridiculous those prejudices were and wonder “what were people thinking at that time” to have believed it was “okay” to discriminate based on arbitrary things.  Arbitrary things such as women being inferior beings and denied the right to vote.  Or African Americans, who were denied basic human rights and enslaved as they were deemed “not human” and therefore “not equal”.

Those are two examples of an entire country of people supporting inequality during a period of time.  There are hundreds more examples of smaller groups of people who were subjected to discrimination of others and denied basic civil rights.  I do believe Mormons once had an extermination order placed on them by the local government.  If you are Mormon I imagine you look back at that incident in your religious history and think how it violated your rights to practice your religion as your conscience dictates.  How appalled are you that the government sought to exterminate an entire class of people merely because of their beliefs which harmed no one.  The local government at the time had applied their definition of “heretic” to Mormons and sought to exterminate them.  How would you have felt being one of those members and having someone try and exterminate or chase you out of your rightful land because your beliefs were perceived to be in conflict with others?  I believe the sentiment of Mormons at the time was one of pleading to be left alone…

I don’t know lots of things in this world but this I do know…  In 1, 5, 10 maybe 20 years, we will look back and wonder why our country sought to limit the basic right of civil unions to people based on their desire to unite legally with another.  With any other.  It’s a matter of time before we evolve from this type of discrimination, it’s not a matter of speculation.

The argument is not one of trying to re-define the nature of marriage.  The argument is that there are over 1,000 rights throughout State and Federal law that are in tied to rights of “married” people.  Christians can keep the word “marriage” as between one man and one women.  Civil-unions, domestic partnerships, or whatever other word you’d like to call it can be used to define the union between two individuals who aren’t one man, and one woman.  Passing one law (or one proposition) comes with it the effects of the 1,000 other benefits already in existence and tied to it.  You can’t seek to change 1,000 laws when changing (or adding) only one will suffice.

There are radical, ridiculous and inflated arguments on both sides of these propositions so read through it carefully and make your own mind up.  Don’t let your religion make it for you.

Two years ago I changed the name of our companies annual “Christmas Party” to “End of Year Party”.  I did this because there were several Jehovah’s Witnesses who don’t practice (nor would they participate) in anything related to “Christmas”.  Some people said that it was ridiculous to change the name… that it wasn’t necessary.  That we can’t make EVERYONE happy and that it’s been called “Christmas Party” for a decade.  That those people who had a problem with it should just get over it and if they couldn’t get over it, to not come.  Some of the things that people who went to the “Christmas Party” were entitled to were some really good door prizes (totaling in the thousands of dollars), some good food, good comradery and a good time.

Two years ago I sat everyone down at a staff meeting after hearing about all the bickering and told everyone that while I’m in charge, I will change the name to “End of Year Party” because I won’t tolerate practices that exclude individuals based on their religious beliefs.  That a simple name change doesn’t change the prizes or benefits that we all have grown accustom to.  We’ll still all be doing the same activities everyone has come to expect but that a simple name change allows us to include everyone in the basic entitlements of the party.

In the planning up to the event, some people still referred to it as the “Christmas Party” while others referred to it as the “End of Year Party” but they both mean the same thing.  Last year, everyone came…  Everyone had fun.  Everyone went home with a prize.  Some went home to celebrate Christmas, some went home to celebrate Hanukkah, some went home to celebrate nothing.  They were all invited to the party though… and a simple name change allowed us to practice a policy of inclusion, not exclusion and still allowed EVERYONE to believe as their conscience dictated.

I have contributed money to fighting both Proposition 8 in California and Proposition 102 in Arizona because I don’t believe in discrimination.  This is what my conscience tells me to do… not my singular definition of morality, not any religions definition of morality.

Everyone is free to teach their children as they choose, don’t teach them to discriminate.  You can teach them it’s wrong, you can teach them it’s a sin, you can even teach them it’s a choice.  Don’t teach them to discriminate.  Teach them that everyone is invited to the party and when the party is over, everyone can go back to living their lives as they see fit.

I hope that November 4th is the time for things to start to change.  If it’s not November, it will be soon enough.  Of that I’m sure.

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To further illustrate the draconian principles the current propositions of discrimination seek to uphold, lets get a history lesson.  The state, Virgina.  The law, race-based legal restriction on marriage.  The year, 1883.  Further ratification of the marriage discrimination law occurred in 1924 and was finally overturned by the United States Supreme Court in 1967.

The case, Loving vs. Virgina.  The plaintiffs, Mildred Loving (of African American decent) and her husband, Richard Loving (of Caucasian decent).  They were legally married in Washington DC in 1958.  After their marriage, they returned to Virgina.  They were caught sleeping in their bed by a group of police officers who had invaded their home in the hopes of finding them in the act of sex (another crime).  They were charged under Section 20-58 of the Virginia Code, which prohibited interracial couples from being married out of state and then returning to Virginia, and Section 20-59, which classified “miscegenation” as a felony punishable by a prison sentence of between one and five years. On January 6, 1959, the Lovings pleaded guilty and were sentenced to one year in prison, with the sentence suspended for 25 years on condition that the couple leave the state of Virginia. The trial judge in the case, Leon Bazile, echoing Johann Friedrich Blumenbach’s 18th-century interpretation of race, proclaimed that;

Almighty God created the races white, black, yellow, Malay and red, and He placed them on separate continents. And but for the interference with His arrangement there would be no cause for such marriages. The fact that He separated the races shows that He did not intend for the races to mix.

More than 10 years later, in 1967, the case was tried in the United States Supreme Court.  In a unanimous decision, the marriage discrimination laws based on race and nearly a century of precedent were unraveled.  In it’s decision, the court wrote;

Marriage is one of the “basic civil rights of man,” fundamental to our very existence and survival…. To deny this fundamental freedom on so unsupportable a basis as the racial classifications embodied in these statutes, classifications so directly subversive of the principle of equality at the heart of the Fourteenth Amendment, is surely to deprive all the State’s citizens of liberty without due process of law. The Fourteenth Amendment requires that the freedom of choice to marry not be restricted by invidious racial discrimination. Under our Constitution, the freedom to marry, or not marry, a person of another race resides with the individual and cannot be infringed by the State.

We can look back on this and wonder how on earth the people of the time would uphold such prejudice and bigotry based on race.  It’s the same argument now.  You can morally, principally or religiously object to interracial marriage, but to legally prohibit interracial couples to right to marry would constitute a violation of basic civil rights which no religion, no moral judgment can touch.

Can you imagine your children being taught in school that it’s okay to marry someone of a different race?  How persecuted that religion must feel that they are sending their children into schools which promote such equality.  Doesn’t make as much sense now-a-days now does it.  No ones rights are being threatened by allowing civil unions.  Not yours, not your religions, not your childrens.