Inequity

I am not the foremost authority on legislation, religion or the gay experience, but I can say that I find the recent developments in California to be quite disheartening. I can latch onto the common phrase of 'I had many gay friends in high school' which is true, my class had a very accepting reception towards a large number of our peers who were openly gay, including teachers and staff members. But it was much more than that, the entire city was diverse. Newton, Massachusetts had a resounding cultural spectrum. Its really one of the only places i can think of that has a whole neighborhood of Italians, a huge Jewish population, which graduated a class representing over 100 nations, had the states best deaf education program, great programs for mentally and physically handicapped students, and the states best ESL program, that was just chock-full-of foreign students, and yes... we had a bit of a problem with some Russian mob activity, but that's beside the point. It was so diverse that my Varsity soccer team included players from Iran, England, Barbados, Kenya, France, Mexico, Norway and Japan. It had class diversity, ethnic diversity and the aforementioned close knit open gay population. Because of this situation, it was impossible not to have friends of glaringly different characteristics than yourself. I supposed I felt the whole world was like that, it was what I knew. I am not one to protect the reputation of any place I've ever traveled to, but I spent a year in college initially in Richmond, Virginia, and I was completely shocked at the utter racial social segregation. There is one point in the city where if you cross the road, you are in the 'black' part of town, cross back the other way and you are in the 'white' part of town. I hate to come off as dramatic, but you'd have to see it to believe it. These social separations manifested themselves in my schoolmates as well. I can't testify that this is an absolute truth, but from how things appeared to me, all the ethnic groups at that particular college (and mind you, it was one of the nations most diverse) only really associated with one another. So to me this was very odd. At my high school our common denominator was our attendance of that school, whereas in college, race, comfort, shallow belonging was most important, and the sad thing is that I cant recall any black friends I had during that entire year.

I suppose that all of that kind of sets the table for one to suspect that I don't  necessarily think I terms of categories. Am I really an exceptional case? In California, Proposition 8 passed, banning gay marriage, and possibly resending thousands of marriages and unions that had taken place before the ballot measure passed. Now I can't also claim I am the authority on demographics and pre-election polling, but from the response of my peers during October, in status messages, bulletins, away messages, anything you can possibly think of on the Internet where one has the capability to express opinion, the feeling was mutual; No on prop 8. I can't tell you one case before the ballot voting of anyone I knew, and trust me, I know a lot of people, saying they wee voting Yes on prop 8, only one person afterward. Now maybe this has to do with a certain hesitation to be pinned as a bigot for making public statements like that, but I have a feeling I have some sort of reasonable cause to say that young people get it, that whether or not any of the questions about homosexuality, or gay marriage matter, the issue is civil rights, and equality, and being a first class citizen. Many might not know the extent of the rights denied gay couples by virtue of their not being allowed to marry. Many think its about health care benefits, and about being able to adopt, and being able to be next of kin, well its a lot more vast than that, there are 1100 rights allot ed to married couples, gay couples can not receive these seemingly inalienable rights. Now this isn't the same issue as the Boston Tea Party, but isn't a group of people who contribute over 700 billion dollars annually to the economy not being fully protected, or having the same rights as any other group of people a lot like taxation without representation? 

But here's where things got interesting. The Mormon Church stepped in and raised over $20 million to get the word out on Yes for prop 8, for obvious reasons. This is an organization that Isn't taxed which engages in not only more questionable marriage practices, but essentially enslaves and medically neglects their members, and effectively inbreeds. Now maybe that last part explains why this group of people are so afraid of gays, but otherwise it just doesn't make much sense that a a group like this not only is allowed to bypass any semblance of church and state separation by raising funds to swing votes, but that they just don't see the glaring contradictions. I don't know much about the book of Mormon at all, but I am imagining it has the same sorts of 'rules' that today are antiquated and haven't been part of our law for a century.  For instance, the bible, and even our constitution did not recognize blacks as being equals, in fact they were recognized as being only a fraction of the value and worth of a white man. Blacks had extremely limited rights, as did women, we all know this, blacks weren't even allowed to marry, interracial marriages were banned as well. Today, as I had already stated, things aren't equal and socially Utopian as wed hope for, but things have more than turned around for blacks, no more slavery, voting rights, the right to marry anyone of the opposite sex of any background that they please, its even gone as well as having a black man in the White House. it has certainly turned around for blacks, who according to the bible, and most likely the book of Mormon, are slaves, are possessions and shouldn't be afforded the same rights as white men. Doesn't it seem a little odd that christian groups aren't actively trying to take the rights away from blacks, the same way they are with gays? It sounds absurd to consider that maybe Mormon groups should sign petitions to bar blacks from marrying, voting, running for political office or any other number of things that in scripture, they shouldn't be doing, the backlash to these sorts of proposals would be astounding, far beyond the idea of bigotry, but somehow its not the same when referring to stripping the rights of gays? Why exactly is there an untouchable status in regard to racial minority rights, but yet homophobia seems to be a perfectly acceptable form of bigotry? If religious groups strive to protect the sanctity of marriage, and use scripture to justify law, than shouldn't they also put blacks back another 300 years in the process? Like I had said before, I would really accept this a bit more had it not come from the Mormons. They believe in polygamy, brainwashing, slavery, marriage and sexual acts with girls as young as 10, and they want to act as if they have the high moral ground over homosexuals, its just illogical.

The nice part about this whole story is that the California state supreme court may very well hold hearings in this case, and repeal Prop 8 under grounds that its blatant minority discrimination, and that it opens doors to a whole number of sets of legislation proposed, even as seemingly ridiculous as racial marriage laws. The fact of the matter is, its about time for contributing members of society to be treated as equals, just like the first line of our constitution says, and regardless of what ones sexual orientation or preference is. I think we all know everyone has different tendencies in the bedroom, different sets of turn-ons, attractions, fetishes, things that in the most basic and animistic ways make us happy. The big thing here is that, these things are none of others' business, so why when someone sleeps with, and loves someone of their own gender is that such an odd thing? If gays cant marry, based Solly in a public lack of comfort with their sexual preferences, than maybe awkward little men who have fetishes for big big women shouldn't be allowed to marry them either.